Australian Web Site Awards
by Ian McPherson, Webmaster
Ian's Power Backgrounds
1 March 2000
Focus Rated Australian Award Programs
There are a number of quality Award programs originating
in Australia. Possibly the best known to Website Awards' visitors
is the Level 5.0 World Best Websites
(site closed) program, which originates in Melbourne, Australia,
and is the brainchild of Australian Director, Rick Doran.
This, as the name implies, is a world-wide Award program, although in a practical sense it focuses on the "English-speaking" world. Judges have been recruited from some of the leading US Award programs and include Tiny Ray Grier, Stelios Stavrinides, Maggi Norris and Tom Speer. Criteria is exhaustive and plenty of information is available on-site. These Awards, as most of you know, are very hard to win. If I were you, I would read some of the other articles here before applying for them!
Joy William's Level 4.0 rated JoyZine's Wonderful Website Award is a general web site Award program from Australia, with lots of seasoned winners, such as Anonymomma, 7Rings, A Gadzillion Things To Think About, and Don's own Website Awards. Joy's site is full of interesting material on Australia, some relaxed, informal, and sometimes "fuzzy" interviews with rock legends, women's issues and more. If you've previously been successful submitting for Level 4.0 Awards and your site is well organised, well designed and offers something unique, you should do OK at JoyZine.
Our own Level 4.0 rated Best of the Web for MacOS Awards is a Macintosh-only web site Award program from Australia. I am looking for sites that have been "made on a Mac" and are a) a unique and valuable contribution to the Macintosh community, or b) an outstanding example of web site design. In general, I value the quality of the content, product, service or information over presentation, but if you have managed to combine excellence of content and presentation, I won't overlook it! My Gold winners include Míc Miller's Beeline, Tom Hollister's CyberStory and Scott Sisti's Clownsquad.
There may be other Australian Award programs rated at Award Sites, but I haven't run across them in my travels. If you administer an Australian Award program, rated or otherwise, please e-mail me. I am planning a page on our site for Australian Award programs and would like to make it as comprehensive and accurate as possible.
Unrated Australian Award Programs
Also of note "down under" is the fast-growing and popular WOW Award program from ITgraphics. This program seeks to discover and promote web sites that are at the leading edge in presentation graphics and technology. This is the Award for those of you with highly developed Flash sites and "art-to-the-max" sites, where the focus is squarely on presentation. The winners here tend to be "edgy" and are not everyone's "cup of tea." To give you an idea of the sort of site that the program is looking for, here is a link to the January 2000 winner, +ISM.
The Australian Internet Awards — the "Oscars of the Internet"
Within Australia, the web site Award scene is totally overshadowed by the Australian Internet Awards, a grueling, around 2 month per year judging and voting program, with well over 100 judges working in pairs and committees, culminating in a "black-tie" presentation dinner and ceremony at a luxury venue. In 1999, the Awards ceremony was held in Melbourne's Town Hall and was attended by over 500 people. These Awards are only for web sites designed and established in Australia.
The Australian Internet Awards was inaugurated in 1996, and
is sponsored by the Australian
Financial Review, Telstra
(site closed), Oracle,
Ericsson
and BMC
software. It is professionally audited by Arthur
Anderson and coordinated by Blackie McDonald. Guava
Interactive, a web site development company in Sydney,
Australia, are responsible for the Awards web site, the on-line
public voting system and the on-line judging system.
These Awards are most akin to The Webby Awards in the US, with slightly less judges but a reasonably similar format. The Awards have improved in quality and performance every year, to the point where the program is considered to be one of the most professionally administered and objectively judged web site Award programs in the world.
There are 19 categories, all of which are judged according to an independent judging process, except the Most Popular Australian Web Site category, which is determined solely by public vote. For more information on the categories, visit the Australian Internet Awards web site.
Getting the Lowdown on the Awards
I recently spent a few hours with Peter Bray, Managing Director of Guava Interactive in Sydney, Australia. Guava design and develop the web site for the Australian Internet Awards. Peter was kind enough to preview the 2000 Australian Internet Awards program and offer some tips for Australian web site developers keen on winning.
Tips on Winning an Australian Internet Award
Peter Bray is one of those lean, lanky and personable Australians that help make a complex interview simple. We spoke for a couple of hours on the Australian Internet Awards, overlooking Sydney Harbour from Guava's offices in Milsons Point in Sydney. I came away very impressed with the planning and execution of the Awards, and the judging and voting system.
Guava Interactive plays a big part in the Awards, and the company has developed a Cold Fusion back-end to deal with the judging and voting. All the pages on the Awards site are generated dynamically, and authorised users can modify any element on any page of the site, right in their browser. Peter also tells me that the Webby Awards have shown an interest in the system Guava developed for the judging, as has an Award program in the Maldives!
(Interestingly, he also noted that Guava is "very self-critical" about the Award site's design and efficacy. He, and the others at Guava, obviously feel the pressure that comes with any Award site! As Míc Miller says — "always make sure you can win your own Award" — sound advice, to bee sure!)
The Judging
It will help you in the Australian Internet Awards if you know who the judges are and how they work. Study the list on the Award site and take note of the companies that these people are employed by. Then imagine "where they are coming from" and how they use the Web.
Unlike the majority of the Focus Award Sites' rated programs, which are run by site owners, webmasters, developers and designers, the Australian Internet Award judges are drawn from business, industry, communications and the media. This ensures that there is a healthy "end-user" focus, and sites that are self indulgent, take far too long to load or are uncomfortable to use, are quickly given "the flick."
The judges work in pairs in the early "knockout" rounds, communicating with each other by e-mail and through Guava's Cold Fusion back-end on the Award site. When the Awards reach the semi-final and final stages, the judges are flown to a common location and form judging committees for the final selections.
Well over half of the Judges from the 1999 Awards are continuing in 2000. Do yourself a favour! If you want to win, study the previous winners. It seems obvious, but what the Judges like this year will probably be much the same as they liked last year. Remember these people have worked together before. Conflicts over "form and function" should be minimal.
Acessibility, "Comfort" and Balance
Peter Bray makes the strong point that site "accessibility" is the key to success with the judges — these people are unlikely to take an interest in your "code," at least in the "knockout" rounds, and sites that feature "transparent" or popular technologies that don't require special installation procedures will be advantaged. Remember that the judges are "internet savvy," but on average not overly "technical." Regardless, they all recognise the wisdom of adherence to the standards of popularity.
(Neither Peter nor I are privy to the variety of browser configurations that the judge's may employ, but we agreed that in order to function as judges for the Awards, the configurations could be expected to contain Javascript, Java, Real Audio, QuickTime, Flash, Shockwave and the Microsoft media player.)
Peter also makes the point that many people miss out because of "imbalance." Even if you have an e-commerce site, make sure your graphics are good. Conversely, if you have an art site, make sure your e-commerce is good. Just because you do what you do very well, do not assume that a good balance is not necessary — it is to succeed in these Awards!
Meet the Criteria
Last year, 5% of the submissions did not meet the criteria. Again, it may be obvious, but always read and consider the criteria carefully. There may be small changes you can make, that will not effect performance or presentation, that will give your site a better chance of winning.
The Checklist
Peter gave me an Australian Internet Awards checklist and I have included it after this paragraph. These are, in his opinion, the most important aspects of the web site experience you offer visitors, and the aspects that should be optimised if you wish to succeed in these Awards:
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