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In 2011, for the first time, the innovation and talent of individuals and businesses in the gaming industry in Ireland are to be recognised at the 2011 Digital Media Awards, with the introduction of the Best in Gaming Award.

This new award is for any programme using online gaming (e.g. online, mobile or casual).
Says Susan Grant, Event Director, “the reason that gaming was identified is because it is a real evolving market in Ireland. There are a lot of international gaming companies who have come into Ireland and are now making their presence known.”
She adds that it is very reflective of the growth of digital media in the last couple of years. “As it evolves the Digital Media Awards need to recognise this…The industry itself has said this is an area that needs recognition if it is to continue to attract that level of investment into Ireland. It needs to be embraced and rewarded.”
Nominations are now open for the awards which are in their 9th year. Every year the Digital Media Awards recognise and reward the most stylish, creative, and pioneering work within the digital media industry in Ireland.
For 2011, there are 22 categories awarding the innovation and talent of individuals and companies in areas including viral marketing, user experience, best app, financial services, animation, digital advertising, e-learning and best agency.
Ashville Media Group has secured Satellite Broadband Ireland as its partner for the awards for the next three years
For further information on the Satellite Broadband Ireland Digital Media Awards 2011, and to enter, log on to www.digitalmedia.ie.

Digital media graduates from the class of 2010 are to be recognised this winter in the eircom Spider Awards.
The awards, which have been taking place since the mid 1990s, have a category specially designed to seek out “the brightest talent in the online marketplace”.

Nominees for “The Graduate” category must have graduated this year and have an innovative online idea or design which impresses the judges and the industry. According to the awards website, a graduate’s website, which may be a portfolio website, will also be assessed against good practice standards in creativity, web design and innovation.
Awards organisers have also included three new categories this year, bringing the total to 20. They are: the Digital Editor Award, the Best Mobile App Award and The Big Mouth Award.
Chairman of the judging panel and Group Managing Director of Consumer and Small Business, eircom, Stephen Beynon commented, “This year we are very excited about the three new award categories, in particular the Big Mouth Award - the shortlist for which will be determined by the public.”
The Big Mouth Award acknowledges the most influential voice in Irish internet and digital media. This award differs from the conventional nomination process, allowing the public to nominate and comprise a shortlist of “Big Mouths”. Nominees may include active bloggers, online journalists, or other relevant mediums covering topics such as business, charity, culture or politics.
The closing date for nominations for the eircom Spiders Awards – which will take place on Thursday, 18th November 2010 in the Burlington Hotel – is Friday, 17th September 2010.
The 2010 eircom Spiders are hosted in conjunction with Business & Finance Magazine. For further information on the awards and for details on the entry process for each category please visit http://www.eircomspiders.ie.

There are just two weeks to go before the Early Bird tickets run out for the Offset2010 event for people working in or interested in the creative industry, students and recent graduates.

One of the event directors is Bren Byrne, an illustrator, who says that the event, which takes place on October 1, 2 and 3, is set to become an annual event. “We had such a positive response to it that we moved to the Grand Canal Theatre this year. Last year we sold out eight weeks beforehand.”
The three-day event, which is almost a one of a kind in Europe, is taking place in the Grand Canal Theatre which can accommodate about three to four times the number that last year’s event could - 2,000 in the main room and 300 in a second room.
This year, says Byrne, the range of speakers has widened and includes people in the advertising world, illustrators, photographers, graphic designers, animators. “There’s nothing really like it in Europe with a variety of speakers. Now there are conferences out there for typography or illustration but ours is a celebration of creativity rather than just one aspect of it.”
One of the coups for the organisers is George Lois, who Byrne describes as one of the original “Madmen” in the advertising industry. “He’s a real character and a lot of people are very excited about seeing him.”
The atmosphere of the event is great and Byrne says it’s an ideal opportunity for networking.
“There are 24 main speakers who will give either lectures on a subject or presentations on their own work, background, current projects. Then we have a second room where it’ll be less formal: Q&As, panel discussions, workshops featuring our speakers and also the wider Irish creative community.”
He gives the example of a workshop on advice on how to become an intern in a design agency as well as interactive self-promotion type debates.
Whether people want to attend for a day or all three, tickets are sold as a weekend ticket and people tend to come along for full days and join in the festival-type atmosphere.
See http://www.iloveoffset.com for details of tickets, speakers and schedules.

The 2010 Realex Payments Web Awards are now open for nominations and sponsorship of categories. The awards, which are held annually, are open to anyone in Ireland.

Following close to two months of nominations and website evaluation, the awards process will culminate with an awards ceremony in the Mansion House in Dublin, on Sunday, October 10.
This year there have been a number of changes to the award categories. These include the addition of Best Mobile App, Best SME/Small Business Website, Best Facebook Page, Best Web Only Publication and Best Guerilla Social Media Campaign (Zero Budget).
There is a varied list of categories including best discussion forum, best independent podcaster, best videocaster and best social media campaign.
According to the awards website, the technical categories now have stricter criteria and will have more in-depth judging. These are for website owners or website developers to show the work, techniques and technology used to build a website. Nominations in this section can only be made by website owners or people with permission from the site owner to nominate.
If you’d like to sponsor a category, visit http://webawards.ie/want-to-sponsor
Want to make a nomination or have a general look around, go to http://webawards.ie

A new monthly networking event, Pub Standards, has begun in Dublin for people working in or with an interest in web design or web development.

One of the organisers, Eamon Leonard of EchoLibre explains that Pub Standards is structure free, there is no format, no leader, no agenda, it’s just people coming together to talk about what they’re passionate about over beers.
“It was born in the UK about five years ago. The thinking behind it is very simple: get people together who like to talk about what they like doing and have beer and that’s it.”
About 25 people attended the first one in mid August. Leonard says that conversations he overheard varied from UX design to systems design, database, schematics, beer, boys, girls, general, to America’s Got Talent. “The conversation ranged from not just technical stuff right through to everything.”
He also feels that people can further themselves through getting out there and attending events. “The people you constantly see at events are the ones who in one shape or another are getting ahead and they’re doing ok. I don’t think that’s an accident. I think there’s a correlation between getting out there, meeting other people in the industry, learning from people, collaborating with people and using other people to further your own goals.”
He says that people don’t realise is that development is creative too. “It is creative problem solving. It’s not something that you can turn on at 9 o’clock and turn off at 5 o’clock. The same way with design. So you’re bringing two groups of people together whose skill set is very different but whose way of thinking of very much aligned. You sprinkle that with beer and magic happens.”
What Leonard would love to see coming out of Pub Standards is a designer and developer getting chatting about an idea, deciding to do something about it and this resulting in a piece of software a few months later.
It’s also an opportunity for people returning or moving to Ireland or who would like to get into the industry to meet people in a non-threatening way.
And this is exactly how it got started here. One of Leonard’s partners at Echo Libre, Helgi Þormar Þorbjörnsson, who is from Iceland had attended Pub Standards meet ups in London. When he moved to Ireland, he suggested that a Pub Standards meet up should take place here.
Visit http://pubstandards.ie and pop Thursday 9th September in your diary for the “post-conference drink-up without the conference.”