I can't speak to why Balsamiq wasn't nominated, but I'm pretty sure the only reason TinyChat won was because they spammed their users with requests to vote for them constantly over the past few weeks.
Seriously, every 10 minutes a banner would pop up asking you to vote for them. The vast majority of their users couldn't care less about the awards, but would vote just to make the damn thing go away.
Posting from cell here - Yes we asked users to vote for us via a one time ad after 15 mins of use- we wanted to win and a button in the client was the best spot. But on the same hand we are not just some random startup with no traction- I think we are actually the highest trafficed of all the competitors.
We are seeing amazing growth and should hit 5mm uniques/mo shortly! :)
Anyways thanks to those who voted for us and enjoy tinychat
Seriously, every 10 minutes a banner would pop up asking you to vote for them. The vast majority of their users couldn't care less about the awards, but would vote just to make the damn thing go away.