Boards.ie scoops Golden Spider award

ONLINE FORUM Boards.ie netted the inaugural People's Choice Award at the Eircom Golden Spiders internet awards, which were presented in Dublin last night by comedian Des Bishop.

The hugely popular discussion forum was the "clear winner", according to the organisers in the category where members of the public were invited to vote for their favourite social networking and community website.

Aodhan Cullen, founder of the free web-traffic measurement service StatCounter, was selected as 2008 Internet Hero by a panel of judges. Founded by Cullen nine years ago when he was just 16 years old, StatCounter now tracks over three million websites and 10 billion pageloads a month.

Having this month relaunched its website following a major overhaul, which added features such as video "catch-up" of popular shows including the X Factor and the Apprentice, broadcaster TV3 picked up two awards: the Eircom Grand Prix Award and Best Digital Media.

Despite having been a vocal critic of the awards, which are now in their twelfth year, internet commentator Damien Mulley was awarded Best Blog. The Spiders judges also recognised Sentry Wireless's Kidsafe as best mobile content or application, despite mobile operators recently claiming to Minister of State for Children Barry Andrews that they had found it to be technically deficient.

Other category winners included imra.ie (Irish Mountain Running Association), heartsplay.ie (Crumlin childrens hospital) and Movies.ie.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times