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What: 2001 New Zealand Internet Awards

Why: To reward New Zealanders that make exceptional use of the Internet as a medium for facilitating both the arts and business.

Where: http://www.netawards.org.nz/

When: Nominations begin Tuesday 17, July 2001

==== A New Concept in (Internet) Awards ====

We are pleased to announce the inception of the 2001 New Zealand Internet Awards. These awards will reward New Zealanders that make exceptional use of the Internet as a medium for facilitating endeavours in both the arts and business.

These awards are positioned as an alternative and compliment to award ceremonies that offer only a handful of Internet categories and to other purported NZ "Web" awards. So far we believe no New Zealand Awards do justice to the companies and people who are making use of the Internet to further business and artistic purposes. For the most part, those that exist merely reward companies for implementing large design-budgets and replicating offshore ideas.

These Awards will not be judged by an overseas panel of judges who know very little about our country, its people or anything more than what constitutes well designed web sites. Instead public nominations will be culled by a panel of local Internet and media industry who will chose finalists based on relevance to the NZ public, innovation and the setting and achievement of a high standard of goals. Finally winners will be chosen via a combination of public on-line voting and judge's discretion.

Judges have been chosen from a broad range of positions in the community and include high profile NZ industry personalities as well as industry members and the general public.

In conjunction with this process, the award process will be entirely transparent (described to the public each step of the way, who may then contribute to the evolution of the process) and even further will be "Open Source". That is, all software developed for the awards, to handle the nominating and voting process will be published under the standard GNU General Public License (as with Linux software and so forth). This will allow the public to further understand and contribute to the voting process, as well as utilise the code developed for other projects of their own.

These awards are something that has not been attempted before in New Zealand, an awards ceremony for a medium that is not tied inextricably to the industry and commercial interests. Allowing it to actually acknowledge those who deserve it, unfettered by objections and untainted by fiscal influences. You may not agree with the results in the end, but they will truly represent the considered opinion of the New Zealand community.

The awards will feature an innovative award ceremony, as unique and exciting as the awards themselves. Rather than a physical gathering of nominees the ceremony will take place over the Internet via "Web-cast". Entertainment will be provided by the nominees for "Best NZ Internet released single". After each award is announced winners will be able to login to the award's web site to make an "acceptance speech" , that is, a comment below the award listing their success. These will appear auto-magically as the ceremony progresses. Nominees and viewers from around the world will all be able to "come together" in this way to discover and acknowledge the winners.

The public and members of the business and Internet communities are invited to submit nominations starting on Tuesday 17, July 2001 via our web site at www.netawards.org.nz. This gives further information on our aim and the award process.

The 2001 New Zealand Internet Awards is a not-for-profit project staffed by a group of volunteers from the NZ Internet and Media Industries. Donations of money, products and services have been accepted from donors to finance essential services. However, no sponsorship or commercial influence into the award process is permitted by the project's mission.

Endorsements:

"What a great idea!" - Timothy Giles, NZ Radio Personality.

"It's about time we had an awards event not tied into the corporate industry: the NZ Internet Awards looks like the one." - Mark Cubey, Creative Consultant, ex-editor of "Loop magazine".

"As a lecturer of Internet and Web development I see the awards as something my students could aspire to. These awards will help the recognition of New Zealand as a centre for Internet development in the Asia-Pacific region." - Dr Stuart Young, Lecturer, Internet and Web Development, Unitec Institute of Technology.

Specifics:

Nominations Opened: Tuesday 17, July 2001
Finalists Announced & Voting Begins: Monday 27, August 2001
Voting Closes: Monday 1, October 2001
Awards Announced: Friday 12, October 2001

Categories:

Best Internet Covering Journalist
Best Internet Focused Regular Column/Radio or TV Show
Best Internet Covering Publication
Best Internet Focused Feature
Best Misinformation/Scare Story/Over-hype
Top On-line Personality
Top Industry Personality
Best Individual Homepage
The "They Don't Get it" Award
Best Learning Institute Course
Best Learning Tool
Best Internet Released Musician
Best Internet Released Single
Best Internet Software
Best Chat Room
Best Personal Writing (Journal)
Best On-line Writing (News/Feature/Site Copy)
Best On-line Retailer (Sole)
Best On-line Retailer (Clicks and Mortar)
Best Publication/Content Site (Sole)
Bets Publication/Content Site (Dead Tree and Web)
Best Net-caster (Radio Station or Sole Internet Broadcaster)
Best Artistic Endeavour
Most Entertaining (Site/Chat room/Game)
Best Non-Profit Organisation Presence
Best Design
Overall "Best use of the medium" Award

Ends

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