World’s best app? Let the 2011 competition begin!

It’s raining apps from now to the show of all tech shows. International CES, the world’s largest consumer technology trade show, has announced — drum roll, please — it’s once again featuring Mobile App Showdown at the 2011 CES this coming Jan. 6-9, in Las Vegas. But here’s the real news for most of you reading this: Nominations for the competition are open.

There are more than 185,000 mobile apps available for everything from finding restaurants to finding your parked car in a crowded shopping mall. But not all apps are created equal - and that’s where Mobile Apps Showdown comes in.

It’s meant to give credit where credit is due — to the best apps on each of the major platforms. Better yet, in a mobile market where it’s nothing less than a Herculean challenge to get the attention you truly merit, Mobile Apps Showdown provides deserving contestants access to a stage - the world’s largest technology platform, otherwise known as International CES.

Want to know how it works?

You can go to the entry page right now. But if you still need to be convinced, here’s what’s in it for you: When you enter, your app will be acknowledged with a write-up, a screenshot, and a “Download Now” button on the Mobile Apps Showdown website. With a team of mobile experts from across the NetShelter Technology Media network, I’ll be leading an effort to cull the list to 25 semi-finalists.

And the competition just doesn’t take place in Las Vegas at CES. There will be an online vote, too, just like the one we conducted at the 2010 CES last January.

If you’re one of the 25 so chosen semi-finalists, you’ll be given the chance to your products live from the Mobile Apps Showdown exhibit floor during the 2011 CES held January 6-9, 2011, in Las Vegas.

The top ten finalists move on to a live demo competition in front of a live and online CES audience and a winner will be declared based on an audience applause-o-meter and an online vote on Jan. 8, 2011

Winners will be picked from each of five platform categories: Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia, and Palm Web OS. There will be a winner from the online voters as well as from the live audience vote at the Mobile Apps Showdown at the 2011 CES.

Submit early and save. We’re prepared to reward early birds with enhanced exposure on the Mobile App Showdown website, as well as other media opportunities. Enter before Aug. 15, 2010, and we’ll reduce the submission fee from $1,000 to $800.

At the 2010 International CES, Clixtr won the live competition, while Gwabbit took home the online prize. Clixtr is a mobile app that turns smartphones into smartcameras. Its users create events, upload mobile photos, and create real-time event photo streams with the users around them. The online winner, Gwabbit, provides automatic email contact management (ECM) solutions for the contact cloud that automatically searches and identifies contacts embedded in emails and adds or updates that information to your information in a single click.

Rules of the competition.

1. You must submit your applications before Nov. 31, 2010.

2. Your application must be available to the public now or delivered by Q2 of 2011.

3. Semi-finalists (25) and finalists (10) are selected from among all entrants by a panel of journalists and experts from the Netshelter Technology Media network.

4. Semi-finalists and finalists will participate in an online vote, which will affect, but not necessarily determine, the winners. (Judges will have the final word and the votes need to be checked for duplicates.)

5. Only finalists — 10 in all — will present at the Mobile Apps Showdown live event at the 2011 Consumer Electronic Show. The winner of the live event will be selected by the live audience.

Ready to compete? Then enter here and enter now.