As part of its 10th anniversary celebration, PRWeek is holding a competition to find the consumer-focused technological enhancement of the past 10 years that has most impacted the PR profession. Obviously, so-called new technologies often merely improve on existing ones, so the goal of this competition is to find the technology that was the biggest game-changer at the time it became widely used.

For example, algorithmic Web search forced PR to dramatically shift strategy - but did blogging alter the industry more profoundly when it became widespread? Each technology should be looked at in its own context. A steering panel consisting of PRWeek's Tonya Garcia, Ogilvy's John Bell, and Edelman's Steve Rubel offered some initial suggestions, then others in the industry, including FutureWorks' Brian Solis and Attention PR's Curtis Houghland added thoughts. Below you will find the 16 technologies in the competition. To view the tournament bracket (pdf), click here.

The tournament will take place over three weeks. For the first round, we will introduce eight new technologies every Monday and Wednesday. Polls will close on Wednesday at 12:00 pm EST, and on Friday at 5:30 pm EST.

Final round ends Friday, October 17 at 5:30 EST