B@B Magazine Names 10 Great Web Site

Each year, BtoB highlights 10 business-to-business Web sites that are particularly good examples of how companies can use the Web to communicate with customers. These sites turn out to be ones that do an exceptionally good job with the basics year after year, allowing visitors to find product and company information quickly and easily, providing a brand experience consistent with other marketing channels and offering a way to take the relationship to the next level.

Once again William Rice, President of the Web Marketing Association, was ask to be one of the experts naming the sites for the article 10 Great Web Sites: Getting the basics right keeps sites useful, effective by Karen J. Bannan.

Web Marketing Association Names the Best Web Sites

The Web Marketing Association is pleased to announce the winners of its twelfth annual WebAward Competition for Web site development. More than 2,400 sites from 45 countries were adjudicated in 96 industry categories during this year's competition. Entries were judged on design, copy writing, innovation, content, interactivity, navigation, and use of technology.

A complete list of the winning sites can be found at the WebAward Web site at www.webaward.org.


Best of Show

The 2008 Best of Show WebAward is presented to Trailer Park for their exceptional work on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix website. The site was also awarded Best Movie WebAward.

Trailer Park created a fast loading website as mystical, magical and visually stunning as the movie itself. Aesthetically, the all-Flash site transports users into a dark, smoldering world of wizards and monsters via brilliant images, ominous music, and crisp, clean layouts. Three engaging games, Duel with the Death Eaters, Room of Requirement,and Thestrial Flight, immerse users in interactive challenges based on elements from the film. Downloads like, wallpapers, MySpace skins, banners, and buddy icons give fans a way to express their Harry Potter enthusiasm.


Top Agency

Risdall Advertising Agency was named Top Agency at the 2008 WebAward Competition, taking home 29 awards – the most ever by a single agency in a WebAward competition. The Top Agency Award is given to recognize the consistently outstanding development going on at interactive firms. Risdall, headquartered in New Brighton, Minnesota, took home Best B2B Website, 4 Outstanding WebAwards and 24 Standard of Excellence WebAwards.

Agencies or companies winning five or more WebAwards in 2008 include:


Agency - # of awards
Risdall Advertising Agency 29
Biggs|Gilmore 20
Avenue A | Razorfish 16
Walt Disney 16
TravelCLICK, Inc. 16
VML 14
Hubbard One 12
TMP Worldwide 12
AGENDA (H.K.) Limited 11
Arc Worldwide 11
Tribal DDB Worldwide 11
Bridge Worldwide 10
JWT INSIDE 10
Digitas Health 9
Disney Channel 9
Euro RSCG 4D 9
Zugara 9
BrowserMedia 8
E-site Marketing 8
Blenderbox Inc 7
Cendyn 7
Ektron 7
Hitchcock Fleming & Associates Inc. 7
Sapient 7
USA Network 7
Weber Shandwick 7
WSI 7
Acsys 6
Azavar Technologies 6
bbdigital (Blattner Brunner) 6
Boston Interactive 6
Greater Than One 6
MRM Worldwide 6
RED Interactive Agency 6
RFI Studios 6
Starwood Hotels & Resorts 6
180 Interactive 5
Airfoil Public Relations 5
Aristotle Interactive 5
Atmosphere BBDO 5
BGT Partners 5
Brulant, Inc. 5
Cartoon Network 5
Cheil Communications America 5
Emakina 5
Extractable 5
G2 Interactive 5
Hunt & Gather 5
Larsen 5
Milestone 5
Thomson-FindLaw 5
TIG Global 5
usdm.net(R) 5
Valassis 5
Web Associates 5


Competition format

The competition was judged by a team of independent Internet professionals representing a variety of relevant disciplines of Web site development. Judges included members of the media, advertising executives, site designers, creative directors, corporate marketing executives, content providers and webmasters.

The WebAward competition format allows Web sites to compete head to head with other sites within their industry to win the Best of Industry award. Entries also compete against a standard of excellence to win Outstanding Website and Standard of Excellence WebAwards. Each site is judged on seven different criteria and earns a score between 0 and 70 points. The highest score in a given category wins Best of Industry for that category. If the remaining entries receive a score of 60 or greater, they receive the Outstanding Web site award. Entries that score higher than their industry average and below 59.9 receive the Standard of Excellence.

The 2008 WebAwards are sponsored by the following leading organizations: Burst Media, PRWeb, Misukanis & Odden, B2B Magazine, AllBusiness, Small Army, ExactTarget, ad:tech conferences, eComXpo, MediaPost’s OMMA conference, , Microsoft Silverlight, Snap.com, Internet World UK, Search Engine Strategies, Webmaster Radio, Rovion and Website Magazine. The Web Marketing Association thanks all of its sponsors for helping to make this annual competition possible.

About the Web Marketing Association

The Web Marketing Association is working to create a high standard of excellence for Web site development and marketing on the Internet. Staffed by volunteers, it is made up of Internet marketing, advertising, PR and design professionals who share an interest in improving the quality of Website development and marketing on the Internet. Since 1997, the Web Marketing Association’s annual WebAward Competition has been helping interactive professionals promote themselves, their companies, and their best work to the outside world. Now in its 12th year, the WebAward Competition has become the premier award event for Web developers and marketers worldwide.

Results of the WebAward Judging Now Available

If you are a nominator in the Web Marketing Association's 2008 WebAwards, we would like you to know that the results have been posted in your nominator account for your review. The results will be released to the general public on September 16th - one week from today.

If you have won a WebAward this year, you may edit your entry information prior to public release of the results. The deadline for making these changes, if any, is September 15th at 5:00pm EST.

Thank you for your participation in this industry standards setting event.

You can sign in to your nominator account at http://www.webaward.org/nominator_default.asp

Winners Announcement Date Set

The winners of the 2008 WebAward Competition for Website Development will be announced September 16th on this website and to the media.

As in past years, nominators will receive results on September 9th in their nominator account and can begin to prepare their marketing efforts.

2008 WebAward Judging Complete

Just a quick update to let everyone know that the judging of the 2008 WebAwards is now complete and we are tabulating the winners in 96 categories. We will announce the winners in September.

WebAward Update

The Call for Entries has been completed and the Judging of the Web Marketing Association's WebAwards are well underway. Winners will be notified in September a week before the public announcement of winners.

Good luck to all who entered.

WebAward Deadline for Entry Has Been Extended

The Web Marketing Association has announced that the deadline for entering its 12th annual WebAward Competition has been extended until June 13th to allow final entries to be submitted and existing entries to be edited if needed.

While all entries submitted after the original May 31st deadline are subject to a late fee, you still have the opportunity to have you best Websites judged by the Web Marketing Association panel of experts and win glory and recognition for yourself, your company and the award-winning Website.

The final deadline is Friday, June 13th and this deadline will not be extended as the judging phase of the competition begins June 16th.

Today Is The Deadline To Enter 2008 WebAwards

The WebAwards are the premier internet award competition that judges website development against an ever increasing Internet standard of excellence and against peer sites within an industry.

Today is the deadline for entering for 2008.

Entering is easy. If you have not already done so, you can create a Nominator Account or log in to an existing Nominator Account. Complete the entry form information and you site will be judged by our panel of Internet experts and be on its way to win the recognition you deserve.

Good luck to everyone who enters.

Paying Entry Fees by Wire

Some international participants of the WebAwards may find it easier to pay for their entry fees by sending a direct wire from their bank to the Web Marketing Association bank. If this is the case, please contact us for wire instructions.

It is important that you submit your entry prior to sending the wire and also emailing us your entry number when you have confirmed the wire has been sent. We have no way of matching the wired funds received by our bank with any entry until we receive your email notification.

Also note that there is a $25 USD wire fee to cover the fees we are charged by our bank.

Submitting Sites on CD-ROM

Web sites that are not currently available online may be submitted via CD-ROM. Please complete the Online Entry Form available in a nominator account and in the URL field, enter "CD-ROM".

Submit three copies of the site on CD-ROM with the entry number assigned by the online entry submission process on each disk. Send your CD-ROMs to:

Web Marketing Association
WebAwards Entry#
P.O. Box 249
W. Simsbury, CT 06092

Overnight packages can be sent to:

Web Marketing Association
WebAwards Entry#
7 Cedar Glen Road
W. Simsbury, CT 06092

Entry Database Not Being Updated

We have received several emails from people who have nominated Websites for the WebAward competition and paid their entry fee, but the system reported that the payment was not showing up in the system.

This is caused when the final button is not clicked during the payment process. The Web Marketing Association uses a leading third party credit card processing gateway in order to protect the financial information of our award participants. If the final button is not clicked, the information is not passed from the card processor's servers to our servers which results in our database not being updated.

If this happens to you, please email us a copy of your credit card receipt and we will use the information from that email to update your entry or entries.


The Web Marketing Association is accepting entries into the 2008 WebAward competition until May 31st. Just remember to complete the payment process by clicking the final button which takes you back to the WebAward Website.

What Kind Of Budget Is Required To Create An Award Winning Website?

There are many that think you need to break the bank in order to create an effective Website that will win awards. Well, this is just not true.

Using data from the participants of the 2007 WebAward competition, the Web Marketing Association has determined that more than half (51%) of websites which won a WebAward were reportedly created on a budget of less than $50,000. Only 5% of the sites which won a WebAward last year had a budget of more than $1 million.

The Web Marketing Association is accepting entries into the 2008 WebAward competition until May 31st, so both small sites and big budget sites will be well represented. While you need to be a huge brand to win some Website award programs, that is not true for the WebAwards.

Who is Developing Award Winning Websites?

Using data from the participants of the 2007 WebAward competition, the Web Marketing Association has determined that 51% of websites which won a WebAward were designed by an in-house team while the other half were developed with the input of an agency or agencies. In fact, 23% of the winning entries reported that they were developed solely by an agency, 4% were a team effort of multiple agencies and 22% a combination of an in-house team with the expertise of an agency.

The Web Marketing Association is accepting entries into the 2008 WebAward competition until May 31st, so both in-house development departments and agencies have an opportunity to get their best work entered.

Award Winning Website designers use PCs.

Using data from the participants of the 2007 WebAward competition, the Web Marketing Association has determined that 58% of websites which won a WebAward were designed on a Windows-based PC compared to 42% of award-winning sites which used a Macintosh-based computer.

When you look at which computer was used in the programming of the award-winning Websites, PC were used in 81% of the winning entries verses only 19% that used Macs.

The Web Marketing Association is accepting entries into the 2008 WebAward competition until May 31st, so we will soon see if this trend of Microsoft supremacy in Web design will hold true for another year.

Who has the Meatballs?

Congratulations to Valerie Neuschwander of Web Associates, Gail E. Hageman of Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP and Kimberly Brookes of Wyndham Hotel Group for being selected to win a copy of Seth Godins book from last month’s Web Marketing Association Interactive Briefing newsletter. In addition, Margaret Lahey of Mailer Mailer responded to our blog posting about a drawing and she was selected to receive a copy as well.

We hope they do as well in the 2008 WebAward competition!

With less than one month to go until the deadline for entering the 12th annual international WebAward competition, we hope to provide a series of hints on how to increase your changes of winning this prestigious Website award. Be sure to check our WMA blog regularly or subscribe to its RSS feed for greater insight into putting your best foot forward and winning a WebAward.

5 Tips to Impress the WebAward Judges

1) Provide a Direct URL to the entry – One mistake agencies that submit multiple entries make is to create a page that shows all of the entries and uses the same URL for all of the entries. It is much better to provide a direct URL for each entry, the judges do not need a landing page to be impressed with your entry, they just want to review the site and multiple sites on the same page increases the chances that they might review the wrong site.

2) Make sure the URL works – The last thing you want is to find out that your entry was not judged because the URL was invalid or the changed before the site was reviewed. If the judges can’t see the site, they can’t score it and it will be disqualified. One thing that causes a URL to fail is nominators that include instructions in the URL like “www.webaward.org - click on the big button”. Instructions belong in the instructions field, not the URL.

3) Be brief and to the point - The Audience and mission statement helps the judges understand the goals of the site before the review. Their advice is to keep the narrative short and sweet. Who is the site’s audience? What are you trying to accomplish with the site – direct sales, branding, information, etc? What are some of the features that might not be apparent? These are what the judges are looking for.

4) List the requirements necessary to view the site – Some sites using the latest technologies require specific versions of products (Shockwave 11.0 or Adobe Flash version 9.0 for example) or the download of plug ins or executable programs to review an entry. They will be more willing to comply if they know what is expected when they review the entry form. Also, let the judges know if your site only works on Internet Explorer because they may be using other browsers.

5) Make sure the password works - If the site is password protected, please make sure the user name and password are active until August 15th. This point mirrors Tip #2 - . If the judges can’t see the site, they can’t score it and it will be disqualified. Passwords that change during the competition can be updated by email

WebAward Update

The Web Marketing Association's 2008 WebAward competition Call for Entries deadline is less than one month away. Now is the time to enter! All entries received after the deadline of May 31, 2008 are subject to a late fee.

The WebAwards are the premier internet award competition that judges website development against an ever increasing Internet standard of excellence and against peer sites within an industry.

A Best of Industry WebAward, a handsome plaque with the image of the winning site embossed, will be given in each of the 96 industry categories, including financial services, blog, medical, small business, travel, advertising, transportation, and government.

It's easy to enter and you can't win if your not entered, so go to the WebAward Website and create a nominator account and submit your entry today.

Clickz Online Video Advertising Forum

Clickz Online Video Advertising Forum - July 22, 2008 - Millennium Broadway, New York City

Interactive video advertising is one of the fastest-growing interactive sectors. What are the implications for marketers? Digital and traditional ad agencies are changing their notions of formats and strategies and are learning to work with interactive video technologies to produce and distribute compelling, effective content.

Join ClickZ and its experts in this immersive, one-day forum when we uncover the strategies, innovations, tools, formats, strategy, metrics, and creative to building an effective online video campaign. This immersive, one-day forum is for senior advertisers, marketers, publishers, and content providers who are using or considering this very fast-moving medium. Its aim is to educate, inform and provide a comprehensive overview of online video advertising innovations, tools, formats, strategy, metrics, and creative.

Early Bird Registration: SAVE $300 now through May 23rd Web Marketing Association members SAVE and additional 10% with CZ10WMA.

Ten reasons why you should enter your website into the 2008 WebAwards

With only one month to go until the entrty deadline, we though we would give you our 10 reasons you should enter the Web Marketing Association's 12th annual WebAward Competition for Website development.

10) If you wait until after the May 31st deadline, you'll have to pay a late fee.

9) Your mom would be proud of you.

8) You will receive important benchmark data for your entire industry and where your site ranks in each of the seven judging criteria.

7) Think of the PR opportunities - industry publications, blogs, websites, by-lined articles, podcasts, press releases, interviews - the sky is the limit.

6) A best of industry plaque containing your award winning site will look great in your office.

5) The WebAward logo on your site is like receiving the "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" for Web development.

4) Your clients and customers will be impressed at your industry recognition and so will your potential clients.

3) A link to webaward.org will help your site's search engine rankings because you will be linked to an 12-year old .org authoritative site with a high Google PageRank.

2) A Best of Industry award means you're the best and you can prove it!

1) If you don't win, we won't tell anyone - and you still get the feedback.

Recognition and feedback, that is what you will receive when you enter the 2008 WebAward Competition for Website development. Winning accolades in the 2008 WebAwards - the Internet's premier award recognition program, is a great way to stand out from others in your industry. You will also receive valuable feedback from our judges and benchmarks for your industry. But you won't get anything if you don't enter!

The 12th Annual WebAward competition deadline for entry is May 31st, only a month away, and you can submit your site for review at www.webaward.org. Avoid a late fee by completing your Web site entries before the deadline.

Enter the 2008 WebAwards today and receive the recognition you deserve!

The Best Of Digital Marketing

1st July 2008
The Grange City Hotel, London

Monetise Your Digital Channels And Inspire Consumer Engagement By Capitalising on the Future of Digital Marketing.

Reserve your place at Revolution's high-level review of 2008’s digital marketing brand best practice, showcasing handpicked award-winners and pioneers from the hottest brand case studies, spotlighting new digital channels that are about to hit the big-time, and looking across the digital landscape to make sure you can create an integrated cross-channel campaign guaranteed to capture attention and keep ahead of the competition.
Special Feature: To guarantee you leaving the conference with expertise that you can apply directly to your campaign, we’ve dedicated time to allow you to book small group time with our speakers

• Multi-Channel Fluidity Develop cross-platform campaigns for the best multi-channel mix
• Monetise Social Media From the creative to the commercial: make social networks produce real business benefits
• Optimise Your Website Explore new options for attract new traffic and streamline your site to convert visitors into customers
• Navigate The Search-Affiliate Landscape Maximise brand potential as the search environment evolves
• Quantify Creativity In Display Advertising Create captivating campaigns with calculable affect
• Perfect Email Campaigns Inspire with fresh design innovations, personalisation shortcuts and attention-grabbing ideas
• Debate Mobile Marketing Is it ever going to be the year of the mobile? Get involved with our down-to-earth, hype-free debate with cross-channel representation

A 360 degree brand-led showcase for all Marketing, E-Commerce and Digital teams wanting to keep their brands at the cutting-edge.