Wow, so there’s only one week left until the build portion of the competition starts. Things sure do move fast, right? We’re obviously pretty excited and we hope you are too. There are well over 200 teams competing in the event this year and we can’t wait to see what they come up with.

As mentioned previously, judging is going to work a bit differently this year because there are so many entries. We’ve hand-picked a group of pretty awesome expert judges who are going to help us trim down the list of finished applications to just the best of the best, all American Idol-style. Then you, the public, are going to get to vote on the top tier (those that move on to the next round) and ultimately determine the winners.

Our 2009 expert panel includes people who do great stuff from all sectors of the web development and startup world: we have web developers, designers, user experience experts, startup and venture business folks, and media people involved. And some former Rumble winners too.

Each of these brave souls will be judging a number of entries, rating them in categories such as design, innovation, completeness, and usefulness, and leaving personal comments or advice for contestants. We’re really glad they agreed to do this, as it’s no trivial amount of work on their part. If you’re a contestant, I’d take this opportunity to welcome them to the fold and say some nice things ;-). Maybe send a fruit basket or something.