.net Magazine awards for the best on the web

Launched in 1994, .net magazine is the world’s best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. They deliver cutting-edge commentary, insightful tutorials, exclusive interviews and expert reviews to millions of web users around the world. Their readers aren’t just web users – they’re out there actively developing and building the next generation of websites and services. The .net Awards celebrated the best in web design and development, and at a glittering event on Thursday night (4th December) in London. This year’s winners were announced!

The awards are given in several areas in the web design and development world. The favourites were nominated and out of the best 3 nominees, judges selected the winner based on the highest number of votes.

The nominees and winners are given below :

1) WEB APPLICATION OF THE YEAR:

Nominees in this category have produced a kick-ass online application. Judges have made their final decision based on innovation, user experience and the impact the application has made since its launch.

• Dropbox
• Google Docs
• Spotify

Winner : DROPBOX

2) BEST COMMUNITY SITE:

Social sites are hipper than ever. This category is all about community, features, and ease-of-use. It’s your chance to get your community on the map.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Vimeo

Winner : TWITTER

3) BEST API USE

As more and more companies offer their APIs for public use, it’s time to honour the most innovative and the most useful applications tapping into services’ APIs.

• Bit.ly
• Tweet Deck
• TwitPic

Winner : Tweet Deck

4) INTERACTIVE SITE OF THE YEAR:

Nominees in this section offer a compelling user experience and are rich in visual flair and imagination. Particular attention has been paid to nominees that push the limits of Web design.

• BBC Blast/Fallon London
• Coco Cola Happy me/Gringo
• nVIDIA Speak Visual/Odopod

Winner : nVIDIA Speak Visual

5) BLOG OF THE YEAR:

There are millions of blogs on the web, but which one do you enjoy most? This award isn’t about sheer quantity of blogs or traffic, but rather the quality of the content they feature.

• CSS Tricks
• Smashing Magazine
• Tuts+ Network

Winner : Smashing Magazine

6) PODCast of the year:

This category brings together the most engaging audio podcasts of the year. Judges have looked at the shows’ traffic, topics discussed and entertainment value and have decided the winner.

• Boagworld
• Creative Expert
• Freelance Radio

Winner : Boagworld

7) VODCast of the year:

Our shortlist of engaging video podcasts is a varied affair, including household names as well as some people that you’ve probably never heard of.

• CSS Tricks/Video Screencast
• http://revision3.com/diggnation
• Nettuts

Winner : Revision3.com/diggnation

8) DESIGN AGENCY of the year:

A lot of discussion was held on this as whom to be chosen. A 12 month scrutiny decided the final winner.

• Clearleft
• Erskine
• Otterball

Winner : Clearleft

9) INNOVATION of the year:

What’s the one web technology that’s wowed you this year? This category will reward an emerging web technology that’s really made a difference.

• Google Chrome
• Opera Unite
• Wolfram Alpha

Winner : Google Chrome

10) WEB PERSONALITY of the year:

Who stood out online this year?

• Susan Boyle
• Stephen Fry
• Ashton Kutcher

Winner : Stephen Fry

11) VIRAL CAMPAIGN of the year:

Judges looked at fresh and innovative marketing campaigns that have spread like wildfire over the last 12 months. The nominees have breathed new life into the genre and left us gasping – but which generated the ultimate buzz?

• Best Job in the world/Nitro
• Skittles
• Star Trek/In house

Winner : Best Job in the world/Nitro

12) STANDARDS CHAMPION:

This gong is awarded to a site, individual or organisation promoting accessible design in 2009.

• Jeremy Keith
• Bruce Lawson
• Jeffrey Zeldman

Winner : Jeffrey Zeldman

13) OPEN SOURCE APPLICATION of the year

What would we do without the open source movement? This category recognises the applications and their creators that make the OS movement so great.

• Firefox 3.5
• jQuery
• WordPress

Winner : jQuery

14) REDESIGN of the year

This category rewards the ultimate site refresh. Judges have compared each nominee with the original website and have looked at the impact the new design has had.

• Facebook
• Manchester City FC
• Whitehouse.gov

Winner : Whitehouse.gov

15) MOBILE SITE of the year:

This category is dedicated to the pocket rockets – the sites that enable you to enjoy your online experience no matter how small your screen size.

• Flickr
• Google
• Twitter

Winner : Flickr

16) MOBILE APP of the year:

Mobile is the future but there’s more to it than lightsaber and fart apps for the iPhone . This category rewards the best and most useful new applications for mobile devices.

• Evernote
• Shazam
• Twitteriffic

Winner : Shazam

17) INFAMY AWARD

The booby prize. Some people should have known better, so we’ve named and shamed the sites, tools, people and organisations that could have seriously improved their scorecards this year.

• Facebook
• IE6
• Outlook

Winner : IE6