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RTE Radio up for top Web award
Tuesday, April 30 2002
by Sheila McDonald


RTE Radio is the only Irish site to win a nomination in the 2002 Webby Awards,
the prestigious US-based awards that recognise the world's best Web sites.

The radio site from Ireland's national
broadcaster joins fellow nominees BBC Radio 4, Kpig.com, Transom and Youth Radio
in the radio category. The winners will be announced on 18 June in a ceremony in
San Francisco. Nominees in two additional categories, technical achievement and
Internet art, will be announced on 06 May.





Although the Webbys are typically portrayed as one of the only global Web site
awards ceremonies, the nominees are always largely from the US. Web superstars
that gained nominations last year, including the search engine Google and e-tail
giant Amazon, are nominated again for the 2002 awards, as are the popular humour
sites The Onion, Fuckedcompany.com and Satirewire. 



Newcomers include a handful of international sites, including the Vatican's site
with a nomination in the spirituality category, and the popular file swapping
service Kazaa, owned by Australia-based Sharman Networks, in the broadband
category. Kazaa has come under fire recently because of the mandatory
user-tracking software that it comes bundled with. Sharman Networks revealed last
week that it is to offer a premium version of its service, which is currently
free.



The Webby Awards are organised by the International Academy of Arts and Sciences,
and this year the Academy is teaming up with the Internet measurement agency
Nielsen//NetRatings to conduct a "sweeps" month in May. During May
Nielsen//NetRatings will tally traffic to major Web sites to determine the
winners in three new Webby categories: Rising Star, Top US Property and Top
Global Property. 



The Rising Star award recognises the site that grows the fastest in May 2002 as
compared to the first four months of the year. The Top US Property and Top Global
Property awards will go to the Web sites that attract the most surfers in the US
and globally during the month of May. 



Sean Kaldor, vice president of analytics and corporate marketing at NetRatings,
said the sweeps should give top Web sites an incentive to develop their best
content during the month of May. 



The winners will be determined by members of the 350-person Academy, a group that
includes Francis Ford Coppola, David Bowie and Esther Dyson. The public can also
vote on-line for their choice in each category, in the HREF="http://www.webbyawards.com/peoplesvoice/">People's Voice Awards.