2010 was an amazing year for Associated Content. In May, we joined the Yahoo! family, and in fewer than six months, we re-launched our community-powered publishing platform as the Yahoo! Contributor Network. Since then, our contributors have had increasing opportunities to share their knowledge and passion across Yahoo! – first-person stories for Yahoo! News and Finance, fan testimonials for Yahoo! Sports, health and beauty tips for Yahoo! Shine, and so much more.

Earlier this week, the Yahoo! Contributor Network team announced the results of the 2010 Yahoo! Contributor Awards (YCAs) – a program honoring some of the Yahoo! superstars who shined the brightest during this extraordinary year of new opportunities, and showcasing content that exemplifies the spirit of this unique platform.

Our top prizes (“Outstanding Contributors of the Year”) went to three Associated Content veterans—Ayanna Guyhto, Carol Bengle Gilbert, and Steve Thompson —who have each built digital libraries of more than 1,000 pieces of unique, insightful content on a range of topics, and now regularly publish their work on some of our leading sites like Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Movies, Yahoo! TV, Yahoo! Local, Shine and omg!. Similarly, our “Rookie of the Year,” gaming/music/outdoors enthusiast Shawn Humphrey, published a wide array of compelling pieces in his first months as a contributor, as has already been featured on five Yahoo! properties.

We also selected ten of the most powerful stories our contributors told in 2010 to call “Content of the Year” – a selection of more than 4,000 nominations submitted by our community. Among the honorees: a Hurricane Katrina victim’s gripping account of her return home, published to Yahoo! News on the five-year anniversary of the disaster; a long-time contributor’s once-in-a-lifetime interview with one of his personal idols, comic book king Stan Lee; a Cleveland reporter’s fascinating profile of a local man who makes art with an Etch A Sketch; and a filmmaker’s philosophical dissection of this year’s most talked about movie, The Social Network.

For a complete list of award winners, and a more information about each of these Yahoo! stars, visit the Yahoo! Contributor Network Blog:
·         Celebrating Our Contributors of the Year
·         Content of the Year: 2010
·         Content of the Year: 2010 (Part 2)

Congratulations to these talented and inspiring Yahoo! Contributor Award winners, who bring incredible value to Yahoo!’s family of leading websites, and do an amazing job of showing the world what our contributor community is capable of.

Interested in sharing your voice with Yahoo!’s online audience of millions? Join the Yahoo! Contributor Network now!

-Darnell Witt, Sr. Community Manager, Yahoo! Contributor Network