Web Awards Around the World
October 24, 2006 at 4:27 pm
In Ireland, we have two opportunities for kudos and fame in the web world:
- Net Visionary Awards, run by the Irish Internet Association. If you haven’t already done so, please vote for us now!We’re nominated in the categories of Internet Marketing, Web Design Excellence, and Best Blogger
- Golden Spiders, run by Business & Finance Magazine. You will have your chance to vote in a few weeks. If you’re on our mailing list, we’ll let you know! If you’re not, well now’s a good time to sign up!
UK
Over the water in Britain, the BIMA’s will take place on 29 November. You can take a look at the shortlist here: http://secure.bima.co.uk/awards2006/shortlist.htm
We love this viral game: http://www.tooncrisis.com/ and were impressed by this social networking site: http://www.tiredandtested.com/.
The UK Internet Industry Awards relate mostly to provision, rather than consumption. So you’ve got the best hosting award, best business broadband provider award, best heavy consumer award. Indicative of a competitive market with many providers offering lots of choice. For now people, we can only look on with envy…
They also have the Internet Villain Award which was won this year by The UK Presidency of the European Union for “seeking EU wide data retention laws which will force ISPs and telcos to retain more data for longer without proper impact assessment.â€
In Ireland, there would be one Internet Villain, hands down winner, our friends at eircom.
Do you know of a better Internet Villain? If so, please let us know by adding your comment in the comments box below.
Canada
The Canadians focus is on innovative products and best design in new media. Browsing through the winners and their work, it’s apparent that there is an emphasis on hot design trends with an educational focus.
Spain
- Spanish winner of travel site last year: Halcon Viajes
Irish winner of travel site: Argus Car Hire
- Spanish winner of banking site: BBVA
Irish winner of banking site: PermanentTSB
- Spanish winner of jobs site: Infojobs
Irish winner of jobs site: Irish Jobs
Australia and New Zealand
Both of these countries rate ‘buy and sell’ type sites very highly. In fact, sites devoted to helping the Antipodeans get bargains tend to score very highly overall.
Webbys Ambassador
October 24, 2006 at 3:55 pm
I’ve been appointed as the Irish Ambassador to the Webbys!
For a decade, The Webby Awards (hailed as “The Oscars of the Internet” by
The New York Times) has been celebrating and discovering the most creative
and innovative people and sites online, and this past year was no exception,
with everyone from Prince and Gorillaz to internet inventor Bob Kahn and
author Thomas Friedman honoured and in attendance at The 10th Annual Webbys.
But while The Webbys has always garnered international entries (nearly 20%
of last year’s entries were international, coming from 40 different
counties), the quality of sites being created today from outside the US is
so phenomenal that The Webbys is making a specific and directed effort to
raise awareness abroad. This is where I come in!
My goal as Ambassador is to promote and ultimately garner entries
from Ireland to put forward to the Webbys. I’m delighted to be responsible for putting the talents of our ‘great little country’ on the global web awards map. I will be asking for nominations in the wide range of categories closer to the time, in the meantime, if anyone has any great ideas on Irish sites that must not be overlooked, please let me know.
The ‘great little country’ quote comes from my mother who instilled this belief in our family long before the Celtic Tiger.
Observations on the Webbys
October 24, 2006 at 1:56 pm
Probably the most famous web awards are The Webby’s. Hailed as the Oscars of the web world, the 10th Webby Awards took place in June with awards handed out in a huge number of categories. The main thing I noticed about the winners was that in so many cases, the people got it more right than the ‘academy’ did.
Web Content Category
Ho hum, the New Yorker won. How establishment. How upper west side! Did they win the award for successfully transitioning from print to online? Or did they win for the content?
I prefer the people’s choice winner – the Big Fat Institute For Advanced Interactive Experiences. This had me laughing out loud on a Monday morning! What a perfect blend of humour, retro styling and cool.
Other stuff that made me laugh in this category – postcards from The Edge – and the lists are cool too.
Art
The winner was the Museum of Modern Art’s Contemporary Voices site. Dull, featuring an annoying navigation, once again I think the people’s choice of Off The Map is much more creative. We really like that design style, in fact we’ve designed a site aimed at youth with that kind of feel to it. Will be launching soon.
Design
And last to be picked at, and thankfully one where the academy and the people got it right was in the area of design. Two examples of truly excellent design. Leo Burnett’s is ‘words failingly’ brilliant and not only that, but it works from an objectives and navigation point of view! While Style Wars is so street cool.
Offline Healing
October 12, 2006 at 9:00 pm
We’re doing a site for a healer at the moment. None of your fluffy cloud-like imagery for this talented lady. The site is going to be far superior to all that. In fact, everyone was struggling to find ’sites we like’ in order to complete the design brief. No, when it comes to healing sites, there’s a whole lot of awful design and waffle out there!
Working with a healer is a very different experience to working with some of our regular clients – a business owner, a corporate executive, or a consultant for example. Things tend to follow a pattern. We have meetings. If it’s a large organisation, then a meeting note follows. Project plans are agreed upon. To-do lists sorted, each party aware of what is required of them.
With this healer, we had a meeting to discuss content and she had lots of inspiring objects that she wanted to share with us. Like the tapestry of one of the Indian Gods or the drawings and cut-outs. We have the tapestry hanging in the office now, directly in front of Heidi’s eyes, so that ‘whenever she looks up, she sees the Goddess of success.’ Unfortunately we couldn’t take all of the other items on board because they weren’t in jpeg or similar format.
It’s gas. I’ve never had to pass up something before because it’s cloth! Normally it’s something that is too low res, or not clear enough quality!
Obscene Image?
October 11, 2006 at 9:26 am
Some people say that they pick up a definite sense of ‘female-ness’ off our site. Not our work mind you, but from this site. That’s OK, provided the sense is of sassy chicks, rather than mustachio’ed old ladies!
Whilst perusing the other nominees of the Net Visionary Awards yesterday I came across a site whose imagery has a definite sense of ‘male-ness’. Check out the image on this site: http://www.2bscene.net/.
When you load up the site for the first time, the thing just kind of rises up!!
Then check out the company name – sort of looks like obscene? Is this for real and intentional or are those guys just unaware of the big phallic image on their site?
Now, in case you haven’t done it yet, go and vote for us in the Net Visionary Awards! We’re up for Internet Marketing, Blogging, and Web Design. Vote now.
Net Visionary Nominations
October 6, 2006 at 9:43 am
I’ve been nominated for the 2006 Net Visionary Internet Marketer Award and the 2006 Blogger Award and Heidi’s been nominated for the 2006 Net Visionary Web Designer Excellenceaward.
So we’re all feeling pretty pleased with ourselves around here. What’s next? I think the nominations will go on the Net Visionary website next week and you can all go and vote. Vote early and vote often is what I say! [No I don't, but it has tended to be a successful electioneering strategy in this country in days of old]
And of course, keep your eyes on this blog for full updates as they happen…
Net Visionary Nominations
October 6, 2006 at 9:43 am
I’ve been nominated for the 2006 Net Visionary Internet Marketer Award and the 2006 Blogger Award and Heidi’s been nominated for the 2006 Net Visionary Web Designer Excellenceaward.
So we’re all feeling pretty pleased with ourselves around here. What’s next? I think the nominations will go on the Net Visionary website next week and you can all go and vote. Vote early and vote often is what I say! [No I don't, but it has tended to be a successful electioneering strategy in this country in days of old]
And of course, keep your eyes on this blog for full updates as they happen…
Web Designer Hits TV Screens
October 5, 2006 at 11:10 am
Not to be outdone, Dublin’s favourite web designer, Heidi Jermyn of Brightspark fame, appeared on RTE television last night! She was starring as a hair model on “Off The Rails”. If you’ve looked at the sites and wondered what the designer looks like – well check her out here!
Web Designer Hits TV Screens
October 5, 2006 at 11:10 am
Not to be outdone, Dublin’s favourite web designer, Heidi Jermyn of Brightspark fame, appeared on RTE television last night! She was starring as a hair model on “Off The Rails”. If you’ve looked at the sites and wondered what the designer looks like – well check her out here!
Women in Business Radio Show
October 2, 2006 at 11:36 am
Want to listen to me on a podcast? You can listen to a recent interview on the Women in Business radio show here. Scroll down to the 20th September.
