Ireland Goes To The Webbys
October 16, 2009 at 6:19 pm
To all of you who made it to the shortlist of the Irish Web Awards – congratulations. Be proud.
Have you considered entering the Webby Awards?
The Webby Awards are the global web awards that have been running for nigh on 14 years now. They celebrate all that is great about online. The Oscars of the Web World. And I think it’s high time that Irish sites got in it.
If you enter before 30 October, it costs $255 to enter a site. That’s €171.
Cars Ireland – you won the Best Practice Award last weekend. Did you know there’s an entire category dedicated to you (Automotive) in the Webbys?
Beaut.ie – you could be adding a hint of a blush if you were representing Ireland in the Webbys in the Best Beauty & Cosmetics Category.
The guys at Look & Taste would cook up a storm in the Food & Bev category. Think of the global exposure to make it to the shortlists guys…
There’s a much wider range of categories than any Irish award ceremony has. I went to the Awards in 2007 and that was the first year that Online Film & Video and Mobile got their own awards night to handle all the various sections within those. We have such cool start-ups located all round this island. I really believe it’s high time we dust off the ‘ah sure we’re Irish we’d never stack up against the Americans’ attitude and give them a run for their money.
Because money is involved.
That’s the main barrier unfortunately, because let’s face it, not many start-ups have a spare €171 lying around. A couple of years ago I had managed to get a large Irish corporate involved in sending the cream of the Irish to the Webbys. We were going to ask you to vote for who you think should represent us in New York, and the mobile phone company was going to pay for it.
Sadly the organisers of the Webbys didn’t like it. No not one bit. They felt that this would put off potential entrants from independently entering. So, they blocked us from running this super promotion and instead have seen dribs and drabs of Irish entrants instead of the huge numbers we would have delivered instead.
That aside, get on there now, dust off your reservations and enter the 14th Webby Awards. If you get shortlisted, I’ll come and cheer you on in NYC!
Tags: Irish Web Awards Winners, Webby Awards, Webbys
Most Accessible Website Award
October 12, 2009 at 8:49 am
Last week was a brilliant one. It began with a win on Monday for an amount of money that I’d been waiting for since July 2008. Quite a hefty sum too, nice to receive it in time for me to hand it straight over to the Revenue.
On Wednesday, a new maternity hospital opened in Malawi. This was the result of five years of hard work on the part of The Rose Project. That Irish charity fundraised and built a maternity hospital to help a country that is on its knees with some basic healthcare. It’s definitely something that we Irish can be proud of as The Rose Project is a small charity set up and run by Irishwoman Mary Donohue. It’s not in the media everyday. But it works hard and does great things. The hospital was opened by another Irishwoman we can be proud of – Dr Mary Robinson.
To cap it all off, on Saturday night at the Irish Web Awards, The Rose Project website won the award for Most Accessible Website in Ireland. This is the second year in a row that a site by Brightspark has won such a prestigious and coveted award. We’re delighted that our work is being recognised by the judges of the Web Awards and really pleased too that it brings further coverage to The Rose Project. Congratulations to The Rose Project on the win.
It’s notable that out of 22 awards handed out on the night, 9 were won by what I would deem to be ‘small’ organisations who obviously chose well in how to spend their limited budgets. The other 13 were won by well-funded organisations or semi-state bodies – the likes of The Irish Times, RTE, IDA. I’m delighted to see that publicly funded websites in Ireland have improved so much. At the same time, I’m really proud for the people behind the following sites who really are living the ethos of today – to get more with less:
- Best Site in Irish Language – Nos Magazine
- Best Social Media Campaign - Count Me Out
- Most Beautiful Website in Ireland – Organic Supermarket
- Best Ecommerce - Curious Wines
- Most Innovative – Decisions for Heroes
- Best New Web App – Kildare Street
- Best Music – Nialler9
- Best Videocaster – Look & Taste
- Best Podcaster – The Persuaders
With the global web awards, the Webby Awards early closing date of 30 October 2009, I would strongly urge all the winners and indeed the shortlisters at Saturday night’s awards to enter the Webby Awards. Put Ireland on the global web awards map. Enter here.
Tags: Irish Web Awards 2009, Most Accessible Website in Ireland, Webby Awards
