180 Apps Launch At Rails Rumble 2010: Our Five Favorites

Astute readers may have noticed a common thread between some of the apps that have been appearing on TechCrunch this past week - namely, that they were built in 48 hours. It's not just a coincidence: those apps were just two out of nearly 200 that were built in 48 hours this past weekend during the fourth edition of the Rails Rumble coding competition.

Each team of up to four people was given a server from Linode and a private GitHub repository. From there, it entirely up to them what to create. There were 180 teams that made it through to the end of the coding session. From there, an expert panel of judges pared it down to 24 finalists who are currently being put through their paces by anyone who wants to head over and check them out. You can vote on your favorites and help determine who will win the grand prize - the Rails Rumble Championship Belt. No, really, it's a belt. The winners also get a Chuck Norris autographed photo - though they might prefer a Ron Conway autographed term sheet instead. It might not be that far off - 38 of the projects from last year are still up and running, and some have even become pretty polished applications with revenue streams.

I've picked out five of my favorites below, but it was extremely hard to choose just five. Go check all of them out and vote for the winner before tomorrow at midnight.

Emulex Epicor Software F5 Networks Factset Research Systems Fair Isaac