The first ever Blue Drop Awards for excellence in Drupal development were announced yesterday. Organized and led by Ben Finklea of Volacci, the awards were both a community effort to celebrate the great work of Drupal Developers, and also a vehicle for Drupal and open source evangelism.

"Blue Drop Awards was a huge success at DrupalCon this year with almost 200 Drupal sites nominated. The positive response from the community has been overwhelming and humbling. Drupal truly is one of the greatest communities - open source or otherwise - in the world today. It was great to see sites nominated from small Drupal-specific sites like The Weekly Drop to mega-corporations like Sony Music and Microsoft," said Ben when we talked about the awards at the recent DrupalCon Denver.

We in the open source community are really great at singing the praises of our favorite projects amongst ourselves, but any opportunity to show off to a broader audience is a necessary and wonderful thing. To that end, the winners of the inaugural Blue Drop Awards are:

The winner of the 2012 Drupal Website of the Year is Eyemaginations.com, developed by Unleashed Technologies, LLC of Columbia, MD.

In the category for Best Enterprise Website Built with Drupal:
First Place: Energy.gov, developed by Phase2 Technology, New York, NY
Second Place: Subaru.com.au, developed by Sitback, Sydney, Australia
Third Place: Grandhotel.se, developed by Happiness, Stockholm, Sweden

In the category for Best Business Website Built with Drupal:
First Place: Shunra.com, developed by Unleashed Technologies, Columbia, MD
Second Place (TIE): Ferca.pt, developed by Javali, Open Source Systems, Caparica, Portugal
Second Place (TIE): Ternbicycles.com/us/, developed by Zivtech, Philadelphia, PA

In the category for Best Marketplace Website Built with Drupal:
First Place: Safaribooksonline.com, developed by Lullabot, Providence, RI
Second Place: Gifts.rescue.org, developed by Jackson River, Washington, DC
Third Place: Themakingspot.com, developed by Deeson Online, Canterbury, U.K.

In the category for Best Social Website Built with Drupal:
First Place: Allplayers.com, Irving, TX
Second Place: Refurborrebuild.co.uk, developed by Livelink New Media, Manchester, U.K.
Third Place: 10000solutions.org, developed by KWALL, Scottsdale, AZ

In the category for Best Non-Profit/Education Website Built with Drupal:
First Place: Forging.org, developed by Unleashed Technologies, Columbia, MD
Second Place: k12videos.mit.edu, developed by Lullabot, Providence, RI
Third Place: Worldcampus.psu.edu, developed by Phase2 Technology, New York, NY

In the category for Best Media Website Built with Drupal:
First Place: Grammy.com, developed by Lullabot, Providence, RI
Second Place: Zagat.com, developed by Phase2 Technology, New York, NY
Third Place: Timeforkids.com/homework-helper, developed by Zivtech, Philadelphia, PA

In the category for Best Personal Website Built with Drupal:
First Place: Thetrek.co.za, developed by Amazee Labs, Zurich, Switzerland
Second Place: AmandaRodriguez.com, Brooklyn, New York
Third Place: Mcuk.si, developed by ETELJE, Ljubljana, Slovenia

In the category for Best Interesting Website Built with Drupal:
First Place (TIE): Responsivedesign.ca, developed by Foster Interactive Inc., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
First Place (TIE): Inhonorofthepeople.com, developed by Gorton Studios, Eagan, MN
Third Place: Fotobout.com, developed by Amazee Labs, Zurich, Switzerland

Congratulations to the winners and to everyone involved in the awards!

If you develop websites, there is some great inspiration on this list, so please visit the winning sites and congratulate the developers and their clients. And while you are at it, dare a proprietary platform to perform better.