Lithium Announces Lithy Award and Hackathon Winners at LiNC 2014

SAN FRANCISCO, May 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Lithium Technologies today announced the winners of the 2014 'Lithy' Social Customer Excellence Awards, which honor and celebrate companies that are transforming how they connect with consumers in the era of extreme expectations. The competition received a record of 60 entries from some of the top brands in the world. Award winners were named in seven categories and were recognized during the Lithium Network Conference (LiNC) in San Francisco.

Lithium also held the company's first customer and partner hackathon at LiNC 2014. The hackathon gave developers a chance to step away from their day-to-day work and pursue a new idea to enhance their communities.  The hackathon produced ideas to integrate community across brand digital channels, enrich the user experience with media, and make the community even easier to use. 

"We received a record number of customer stories of innovation and business impact in each Lithy submission this year," said Lithium President and Chief Executive Officer Rob Tarkoff.  "Brands are recognizing that today's customers have changed and are revamping their digital experiences to reflect this."

During the one week Lithy voting period, the Lithium Community saw over 15,000 page views with over 3,000 votes from community members.  Award winners were selected through a combination of the popular Lithium Community peer vote and by an expert panel of judges that included Lithium executives and Ray Wang, Principal Analyst, Founder and Chairman of Constellation Research, Inc. The 2014 Lithy award winners are:

• Support Savings MVP – Telefonica Spain
• Excellence in Customer Satisfaction – TELUS
• Lithium Platform Innovator – Barclaycard
• Best Community Design – K2
• Organization Game Changer – Comcast
• Digital Strategy Leader – Telstra
• Most Creative Promotion or Launch – Fox Sports Australia

Lithium also recognized the strongest submissions for the North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific regions with the Lithy Regional Star awards:

• Regional Star (North America) AT&T
• Regional Star (Europe) Cortal Consors
• Regional Star (Asia Pacific) StarHub

The 2014 LiNC hackathon award recipients are:

• Best use of the API v2: AKP (Mark Potterf, Rebecca Hathaway, Michael Kilgore, Michael Wong)
• Best community customization: 90 Degrees (Marc Zimmermann, Ramun Berger, Claudius Henriks, Gino Eposto)
• Best community integration: Lithintegration (Eric Broyles, Luis Garcia)
• Overall winner: 90 Degrees (Marc Zimmermann, Ramun Berger, Claudius Henriks, Gino Eposto)

For more information about the 2014 Lithy Social Customer Excellence Awards, please visit: http://www.lithium.com/conference/linc2014/

About Lithium Technologies
Lithium's software helps companies reinvent how they connect with their customers. Lithium works with more than 300 of the world's best brands— including Best Buy, Indosat, Sephora, Skype and Telstra — to respond on social networks and to build trusted content on a community they own. The 100% SaaS-based Lithium Social Customer Experience™ platform enables brands to build and engage vibrant customer communities to drive sales, reduce service costs, accelerate innovation and grow brand advocacy. For more information, visit lithium.com, or connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and our own community. Lithium is privately held with corporate headquarters in San Francisco and offices across Europe, Asia and Australia. 

The Lithium® logo is a registered Service Mark of Lithium Technologies. All trademarks and product names are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Lithium