Best Online Trader In The Whole Of Irlanda
September 27, 2007 at 9:39 pm
If you are blinded by the sheer and utter length of the list of candidates running for Best Online Trader in the IIA Popularity Content, why not vote for Spanglish? Paula Flanagan is the owner of that whizzy social networking site aimed at people who are into all things spanish.
Yes Brightspark is behind the creation and development of the original of this first Ruby on Rails Irish Social Networking Site. Si Si Senor! Cast your votes now.
Brightspark in Net Visionary Awards Shocker!
September 26, 2007 at 9:15 am
A couple of people have pointed out that Brightspark is listed amongst the cast of thousands that makes up the Net Visionary Awards contenders. That is true. Heidi Jermyn is in the web designer excellence category and I nominated her. Heidi is a truly excellent designer who always managed to combine design beauty with edgy-ness. Heidi and I worked together at Brightspark and in that time she was the creative force that was responsible for many great sites. After 8 years as a designer, Heidi decided she’d had enough and has moved on to become a Project Manager. She’s happily project managing at Arekibo now and rumour has it, she’s becoming known as an Accessiblity Nazi (sorry – Guru!) there. I nominated Heidi because it would be nice for her to bow out of one career on an award tip and because it was free! You can vote for her here.
That said, I still think the IIA Awards is a popularity contest. Half the people on there I’ve never heard of, yet some of them might make it to the shortlist – as indeed I did last year for Best Internet Marketer. It will remain to be seen who’s got the largest mailing list when the shortlist is announced. Go go Heidi. Give her your vote. It would be kind of ironic for someone who’s no longer a designer to win the best designer award!!
Website Categories
September 18, 2007 at 10:11 am
With such a wide range of categories to choose from, the Webbys offers many a chance of getting in to win!
There are 4 main areas of awards:
- Websites
- Film & Video
- Mobile
- Advertising
Within each area, there are several categories. For example in the mobile space, the categories are as follows:
- Entertainment
- Gaming
- Listings & updates
- Mobile Marketplace & Services
- News
- Social Networking
- Sports
Often, businesses naturally fit into more than one category. For example, Nubiq – who I met at the FOWA last week, would fit nicely into the Social Networking or Mobile Marketplace & Services. You can be the best judge of that – check out their site : www.nubiq.com
Huthchinson’s 3 recently released “X-series” in Ireland. Vodafone recently relaunched their Mobile portal (in partnership with YouTube, eBay, Myspace and Google). And 3 & TV3’s Xpose launched a mobile version of the programme; where clips are available over the 3 network. There’s a lot going on – and that’s just in mobile.
The question is: do you think any of this is world class?
If so, do you think it would be worthwhile for them to stump up the entry fee for the Webbys? If you enter before 26 October, it’s $225 – with current exchange rates that equates to about 70p!
Most importantly, do you know of other mobile players who would do well to represent in this space? If so, I’d really like to hear from you – please nominate your favourite mobile companies below.
Why I Support The Webby Awards
September 17, 2007 at 10:48 am
As your Webby’s Ambassador for Ireland, I am obliged to tell you about the Webby Awards. But I’m not obliged to be the Ambassador. I support and believe in the Webbys because they are the only web awards worth taking part in.
Reasons to enter the Webbys
- Longest running – now in their 12th year
- Global – because the web is global and not restricted to this tiny part of the planet. Plus think of the traffic if you got shortlisted!
- Massive media coverage due to the quality of those who take part
- 5 Word Acceptance Speeches – another innovation which certain other awards ought to take note of!
But the real reason why the Webbys are the superior awards on this planet (or as the BBC called them “the Oscars of the Web world”) is because of the Voting Procedures.
Unlike the Net Visionary Awards which are a popularity contest, the Golden Spiders which are about the size of your purse, or the DMA’s – huh? Wha are they?.. Webby awards tend to go out to the very best in the categories. Shortlisted nominees get reviewed by the members of the prestigious International Academy of Digital Arts & Science and those who garner the most votes wins. Not only that but in true democratic Web fashion, there is also a chance for the people to vote in the People’s Voice Awards. So for every category, there are two winners. In many cases, the Webby and the People’s Voice Award goes to the same thing, because let’s face it – quality is quality. But I think it’s interesting to see where the ‘experts’ and the people agree and diverage.
So what are you waiting for? Start thinking about who you think ought to be representing Ireland on the Webbys stage. Have a look at the highlights reel from this year’s awards.
The Webbys4Ireland site is shortly going to be updated to allow you to make suggestions about possible strong Irish entries. The plan is to contact these directly, help them overcome the Irish “oh no I couldn’t do that” humble attitude (does it still exist?) and there will be some sort of alcohol-laden shindig to cheer them all as they enter and enjoy the Early Bird Discount!
So start thinking about it and check out this year’s categories. There are new ones coming on this year and I’ll publish a list of them tomorrow:
FOWA Roadshow
September 14, 2007 at 8:33 am
The FOWA roadshow came to Dublin last night and it was lots of fun. I really enjoyed meeting people that I know from Twitter *in the flesh* and sure the chance of sharing a few anecdotes over the nice chilled Sauvignon Blanc was an added bonus! Not only that but there were also lots of entrepreneurs displaying their wares. I’m now going to immerse myself in these new apps and see which ones I like the best. Here’s what I’m going to look at..
- Pix.ie – great name, great photo sharing tool. If it’s more intuitive to use than Flickr, and has the switch on switch off privacy that I’m after, then I’m definitely in.
- My Say – a bit like Twitter – but for voice! Am thinking I will add it to my Facebook profile if I can.
- Tourist Republic - tripadvisor for cool people. More than just hotel reviews
- Louder Voice – the perfect place for opinionated people like me
- Put Place – content storage for photographers
And we all finally got to hear about Niall Larkin’s ‘best social lubricant since the invention of alcohol’ as he finally went public on it yesterday! Good luck!
IIA Awards – Best Online Banking Service?
September 13, 2007 at 4:15 pm
There is none.
But why do they have a category to single out online banking and not any other industry grouping?
Is it because {shock} it was dictated by the sponsor? But surely the IIA wouldn’t be as commercial as that…?
So let’s see who the winners are…it will be those with the largest database and who managed to get up off their banking asses and ask their customers to vote for them.
Net Visionary Awards as a popularity contest….
Slow News Day
September 11, 2007 at 8:22 am
My new discipline of reading blogs around my subject started back today. I’m at the desk 21 mins and I haven’t touched FB yet! Not much happening news-wise in the industry, someone posted a tweet yesterday asking when silly season is going to end. So in the absence of news, I’m going to add a bit of my own:
I didn’t get elected to the IIA Board. I don’t know yet who did, but I got confirmation that I didn’t. This is no bad thing. I am sure that whoever did get elected will be very good because the other candidates running were good strong people. Also, I was running on a negative – ie. I was sick of giving out about the organisation and not doing anything about it. Now I have put myself forward and failed, at least I can say I tried, and can continue to grumble from the fence!
There is still the problem of a lack of proper representation for those who are in the industry. A quick look at the current crop of IIA events:
- Online Marketing Best Practices – at a nice high level so you get to know the what, but not really the how
- Is your website working for you? – how to get the most from your website – I presume it will cover things like ‘don’t forget to have a contact us button’
- Make Money from Your Website – about ecommerce, with speakers from Realex, so I presume it will cover things like ‘use Realex as your payment gateway’
There is nothing going on there that would attract the likes of those who attend Open Coffee Clubs, BarCamps, Ruby Tuesday, Podcamps, and the many other events that take place around the country for those who are passionate about doing.
What Not Reading Blogs Has To Do With Fashion
September 5, 2007 at 9:57 am
I had quite a nice routine going there – about 2 months ago – every morning, I’d land at my desk and spend 30-45 minutes reading blogs. I have my RSS all set up and categorised by subject and I used to read plenty around the subjects that interest me.
Not lately though.
Lately I’ve been landing at my desk and spending possibly even more time reading around, but reading Tweets and Facebook posts, not reading around my subjects. Yes I know I vowed I’d never join FB, but I did, and I’m getting more and more hooked every day. I am a total slapper on FB – accepting any old invitation for friendship, downloading all sorts of apps, never to even try them because I don’t know how or because something shinier and new comes along!
It’s a lot like fashion. In fashion terms, what I’m doing now is like shopping for clothes that never come out of the wrapper. Buying plenty but leaving them to languish in the wardrobe. Attending every 2 bit launch or sample sale. Shopping in Penneys little and often rather than deciding what it is I really like and buying that.
It’s got to change. I am quickly tiring of this light weight diet for my soul. I want to go back to reading the comments flying out of the US about how humanity’s consciousness is changing; being impressed by new apps that do something meaningful rather than count how many people like you on FB. So it’s back to school time. Starting tomorrow.
