Remember the days before everyone and everything was on the internet?

Back then, voting in the Best of Madison contest meant tearing a page out of your latest issue of Madison Magazine (like the one on the left, from March 1998), filling the ballot out by hand and springing for a stamp to mail it. In those days, out of sheer necessity, there were also fewer categories. Shown here on the front side of the ballot are all-things-food; on the back are services (including cheeky options like "store that tries hardest") and people (including the equally cheeky "most overexposed" and "Madisonian of the year").

This year's Best of Madison winners  --  brought to you by technology that was unimaginable in 1998  --  are the result of 292,814 votes cast by 29,105 users across 151 categories.

Maggie Ginsberg is managing editor at Madison Magazine.

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