Vote for your favourite Irish social networking site

That's what the Golden Spiders want you to do. They've just announced their shortlist for the Best Social Networking site and now it's up to the public to vote.

They are:

• http://www.IGOpeople.com
• http://www.irishabroad.com
• http://www.kotalk.com
• http://www.lonely.ie
• http://www.nimble.ie
• http://www.politics.ie
• http://www.thumped.com
  
• and the www. free http://pix.ie .
  
  

From the press release:

Members of the public are invited to cast their vote for one of the shortlisted websites by 6pm on Wednesday, 18th November 2009.

Votes can be made by sending details of your chosen website to info@goldenspiders.ie.

The winner of the “Best Social Networking Website” will be announced at the eircom Golden Spider Awards Ceremony in the Burlington on Thursday, 19th November 2009.

What should you think about before voting for your favourite social networking site?

INFORMATION/CONTENT – Does the site provide users with entertaining, informative and gripping content? In addition to the user-generated content does the site make the most of externally developed add-on applications which further encourage communication between members?

USABILITY – Does the site make efforts to accommodate non-standard visitors, for example: mobile visitors, visitors with text-only browsers, touchscreen visitors, users with screen readers and other alternative devices and a variety of screen resolutions.

DESIGN – Does the site make the best use of graphics, animations and interactive elements? Is the site designed to enable users to interact with the content and information in an easy and enjoyable manner?

RELEVANCE – Does the site clearly understand the needs and aspirations of the communities it supports? Does the site provide specific tools and services to meet those ends?

INNOVATION – Does the site provide new and interesting ways for users to collaborate and communicate?

I'm particularly delighted to see Thumped.com and Politics.ie in the list, as well as Pix.ie. Well done :)

Golden Spiders 2009 shortlist announced today...

The shortlist for the 2000 Golden Spiders Awards was announced today.

All available on a Google Spreadsheet right here.

Congratulations to everyone nominated. The awards are on November 19.

Seats are €300 and table of 10 costs €2,900. Ex VAT.

For the win.

Liveblogging the Golden Spiders, though not there

Update 2:

Thanks to John Breslin, here's the full list of winners, (before of course they're on the Golden Spiders website). Congrats on the win for Boards.ie, John! Also a big congratulations for the well deserved best recruitment site goes to Gary and the team at Prosperity Recruitment. They're the best I've used both as candidate and client and deserve the recognition.

Post update:

It was a spur-of-the-moment experiment - could I live blog an event I wasn't at, based soley on the tweets from those I follow who were at it? Answer this time is no, unfortunately.

It's 00:24 and it doesn't seem there's anyone tweeting from the Burlington. Hopefully they're too busy enjoying themselves.

The 2008 Golden Spider Award winners (that I know of) are as follows:

• Best indigenous website - Movies.ie*
• Best Digital Media Website - TV3.ie
• Best Blog - Mulley.net
• Best Education, Research & Training website - OSI.ie
• Best Web design & development agency - Webfactory
• Best Retail & Home Shopping Website - Toyota.ie
• Best e-government Website - OSI.ie
• Best Social Networking & Community Website – People's Choice - Boards.ie
• Internet Hero - Aodhan Cullen, chief executive of web analysis firm Statcounter. Cullen, 25, started the company when he was 16. Great interview here.
• Grand Prix Award - TV3.ie **

(* Movies.ie may have won for best indigenous website either - I'm awaiting confirmation. ** Big thanks to @achgohairithe for letting me know that one.)

It's a real pity the Golden Spiders didn't have a dedicated twitter feed for the Awards, or someone there tweeting the results, especially given their hefty attendance fee of single seats costing €300 each while a table of 10 cost €2900, plus black tie dress code.

With the amount of liveblogging and livecasting technology available, you'd have assumed they'd have tried something. Even setting their website to update at midnight would have been a help.

However, we can wait until the morning when the results are out I guess. No harm done. Big opportunity may have been missed though.

Congrats to Vincent from Movies.ie on a well deserved award and of course to Damien too!

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God bless Twitter for such occasions.