The cream of the crop in the interactive and media industries went on show at TUANZ’s Interactive awards in Wellington this week.
The awards recognise top designers and developers and are an effective curtain-raiser to the TUANZ-sponsored broadband applications conference beginning in Nelson on Sunday (see Here's broadband: now what do we use it for?).
TUANZ chief executive Ernie Newman says that while the first leg of the the country's broadband rollout is the infrastructure, encouraged by the Probe project and independent regional incentives, “these [award entrants] are the second leg”.
“The third leg of the stool is getting New Zealanders interested in the uses of broadband,” he says.
There will not be a single killer broadband app as email was for narrowband internet, Newman says. Particular applications will, rather, lead the way in each industry sector. That is why the Nelson event has engaged leading representatives from a range of sectors.
Awards were presented in 12 categories on Thursday night, with an overall “craft” award selected from among the finalists. It was won by Oktobor for the Sky TV Interactive Weather Channel, claimed to be New Zealand’s first implementation of interactive TV. This allows viewers to select the weather for their own area in a variety of forms from text bulletins to isobar maps and satellite photographs.
In its own category, Information and Reference, it was beaten by Shift’s Film Archive website. Shift also took the award in the marketing category, for its Victoria [University] International site. Altogether, the company had five nominations among the finalists.
Other awards went to a Learning Media/Synergy collaboration in the education category, Eforms for best B2B application, and HyperFactory for UVtext in the not-for-profit/community section. Ericsson Synergy won the experimental category for the Binney Project at Te Papa, Saatchi & Saatchi for Adidas Football Fever in the entertainment section, and Awhina’s Virtual Coach in the business training category.
Spikefin, with the Hell Pizza ordering system, HellO, was judged best B2C application.
Matt Stoddart won the student award for the Sony Pulse catalogue, and Dan Brupstein for Sweet P Gifts in the new student e-commerce category. WebSpedd with Dbonair won the mobile internet award.