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More than 2,000 people voted in the nominations for the inaugural Zeddy awards for Irish Internet Web sites.
The awards include 14 categories covering everything from the best Irish Arts and Culture site to the "To the death poll" for the site which people could not do without.
Candidates for these categories include www.artscouncil.ie, www.clarehurlers.com and www.irish-architecture.com as well as www.boards.ie, www.entertainment.ie, www.gohop.ie and www.online.ie.
The fourteen categories in "The Zeddies" were suggested through on-line polling and questionnaires filled out at the monthly Zeriously seminar evenings and Kieran Curtin, director of the awards described them as "more Sundance than Oscars." He said, "The Zeddy Awards are recognising the achievements and hard work of many of the unsung heroes, sites and Web-resources in the Irish on-line space."
More than one hundred candidates have been shortlisted for the awards and a final round of voting will be open until Wednesday, 29 August to decide each winner at http://www.zeddyawards.com
The awards will presented later this year in a ceremony at the Rotunda for 250 people. There is an IEP50 entry fee, which according to Curtin, "reflects the costs of running such an event on a large-scale." Part of the IEP50 entry fee includes a charity contribution to Concern Ireland, as well as food, drinks and music.
Curtin said the winners would be announced on Thursday 30 August. He said that because of the closeness between the number of votes for nominees, the organisers had decided to extend the number of nominees in each category to ten.
ElectricNews.Net was nominated in a number of categories including the "Best Business Web Site," the Irish site that "you couldn't afford to live without," "Best Application of Wireless Technology" and the best Irish e-zine.
Among those nominated as the Web sites that people are most likely to buy from were brewcrew.ie, buy4now.ie, Daft.ie, Ryanair.com and ticketmaster.ie.
The awards hoped to tap into the grassroots of the Irish Internet industry in Ireland and give an alternative to the more formal awards already in existence.
Other categories include best small Irish business Internet effort or use, best on-line Irish advertising and marketing, best leisure site and best on-line Irish design. The awards will also include a category for the best Irish slogger in the Internet arena as well as a category for the site that spent the least and got the most (best marketing on a small budget).
The Zeddy's will represent the latest awards program designed to honour Ireland's on-line businesses and organisations.
The Irish National Business Internet Awards, run by Web Ireland, will be launched at the end of the first week of September. There had been some speculation that the awards would be cancelled due to a lack of sponsorship. However a spokesperson for Web Ireland said the awards ceremony would proceed as scheduled.
The Golden Spider Awards, supported by Dot.ie magazine, the Irish Internet Association and Esat, are now in their fifth year. Voting for Spiders has now concluded and a black tie awards ceremony will take place at the RDS on Thursday, 06 September 2001.
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