So on Saturday evening I decided to go to the Irish Web Awards (IWA). It was in Radisson SAS and the guy who wrote directions “near Dublin castle” made me quite mad. All the roads around that Radisson is one way so it took us half hour to find where it was and where to stop.

My second worry was about the clothes (women always worry about clothes too much). After Inspired IT Awards I was a bit worried going to another awards in only jeans. Well, my worries passed away as I saw those 5 guys with the red wigs standing in the front entry.

Even knowing that it is Ireland, I thought we might be late. Yeah, we didn’t get free drinks for 1,5 hour, but only 0,5 hour free. Crowd was amazing and of course there was only like 1/5 women. I found a good way to meet people. I came to person and said like “Hi, I think I know you from Twitter, you said you will come”. And then they say like “yes” or “no” and we keep talking.

Award ceremony should have started at 9pm, but people were too busy with free drinks so it actually started later. Rick O’Shea was the person who grow beard to make give awards in IWA. And he made ceremony so funny that people didn’t even care who was nominated and who won, they just kept yelling, applauding and giving out comments. It was most fun event I have been in Ireland.

There was 22 awards in total (including Grand Prix) and you can review them HERE. I’m too lazy to comment for all of them, however I want to mention quite a few which made impression on me in some kind of way.

First award was Best Online Publication and it was won by Irish Times. They didn’t came to IWA so Rick made a funny comment that he doesn’t care if that award ends in someones closet by the end of the evening.

Best Radio website award went to Phantom FM. And I really, really love this radio so cheers for them.

Best Podcaster was Playlist Mix. I really wanted Mumcentric to win you know. At least them I knew…

Best Technology Site. Silicon Republic won this one and they was shortlisted for two categories. Suits them well.

Best New Web Application/Service was won by Pool Daddy. One of friends of mine works there so cheers for them!

Best Goverment Website gave me complete laugh. The first page design with deer and name Aras Kids made it a great joke for rest of the evening.

Well… and then it came to Best Council Website and presentation disappeared. Windows started with some “low battery” error and public went insane with cheers. Rick asked some from the red wigs to come in front and make a dance. He did it pretty well, I’m sure there is a lot of photos everywhere now.

Best eCommerce / Services Website was won by Spicendipity. I often see girl owning it in IBW so I’m glad about her.

Best Practise was won by Pix.ie and Most Beautiful Website was won by Twitterfone. No news here.

And our companies website AgileTech actually was short-listed for Most Acessible Website. But award was given to Kanchi.

The Best Forum website and Grand Prix went to boards.ie
There was actually two people in the room who never opened it. I secretly actually wanted IBW forum to win. But from other side I wanted to see CuLT in live as he is developer for boards.ie and anime forums.

So that’s about it. Photos should be in Flickr, Pix.ie (I couldn’t find in Pix.ie) and Twitter. Just search for IWA08. I didn’t took my camera unfortunately as it was full with photos from ZOO (I went there in the same day). However I took few pictures with the cheapest Vodofone phone in Ireland. If you can stand them, you can look at them: