New 7 Wonders of the World

The New 7 Wonders of the World was a campaign started in 2001 to choose Wonders of the World from a selection of 200 existing monuments. The popularity poll via free web-based voting and telephone voting was led by Canadian-Swiss Bernard Weber and organized by the New 7 Wonders Foundation (N7W) based in Zurich, Switzerland, with winners announced on 7 July 2007 at Estádio da Luz in Lisbon. The poll was considered unscientific partly because it was possible for people to cast multiple votes. According to John Zogby, founder and current President/CEO of the US polling organization Zogby International, New 7 Wonders Foundation drove "the largest poll on record". The program drew a wide range of official reactions. Some countries touted their finalist and tried to get more votes cast for it, while others downplayed or criticized the contest. After supporting the New 7 Wonders Foundation at the beginning of the campaign by providing advice on nominee selection, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), bound by its bylaws to record and give equal status to all World Heritage Sites, distanced itself from the undertaking in 2001 and again in 2007. The 7 winners were chosen from 21 candidates, which had been whittled down from 77 choices by a panel in 2006. The New 7 Wonders Foundation, established in 2001, relied on private donations and the sale of broadcast rights and received no public funding. After the final announcement, New 7 Wonders said it did not earn anything from the exercise and barely recovered its investment. Although N7W describes itself as a not-for-profit organization, the company behind it, the New Open World Corporation (NOWC), is a commercial business. All licensing and sponsorship money is paid to NOWC. The foundation ran two subsequent programs: New 7 Wonders of Nature, the subject of voting until 2011, and New 7 Wonders Cities, which ended in 2014.