–The Web Marketing Association announced today the winners of its tenth annual WebAward Competition for outstanding web site development. More than 2,300 web sites from 35 countries were adjudicated in 96 industry categories during this year’s WebAward competition.

Entries were judged on top web site design, copy writing, innovation, content, interactivity, navigation, and use of technology.

“The World Wide Web continues to evolve in terms of Web site development and the expectations of visitors to sites,” said William Rice, President of the Web Marketing Association. “The Web sites today are more integrated than event and have multimedia tools embedded into the site rather than as links. The WebAward Once again the WebAward winning Websites have set the standard for all Web development.  This accomplishment serves as invaluable marketing opportunity for both the winning website and company and serves as a benchmark for all Websites within the industry.”

The 2005 Best of Show WebAward is presented to New York-based Big Spaceship (www.bigspaceship.com), for its outstanding work on the "TBS: Department of Humor Analysis" web site at www.tbshumorstudy.com. The web site was also won for Best TV WebAward. TBS’s Dept. of Humor Analysis works hard to put the -very- in front of -funny.  To help TBS steer clear of common pitfalls in this cut-throat, dog-eat-dog, rabbit-outwit-duck, duck-shoot-pig, anvil-smush-coyote, Chico-trip-Zeppo field of funny business, Big Spaceship joined forces Mother Interactive to turn their very silly questionnaire into an addictive, fully interactive web site.

R/GA (www.rga.com) was named Top Agency at the 2006 WebAward Competition, taking home 19 WebAwards. The Top Agency Award recognizes the consistently outstanding development pursued by interactive firms when creating top website designs. R/GA has also won more WebAwards than any other organization during the past decade, although this is their first Top Agency Award. R/GA, headquartered in New York, won 12 Outstanding and 7 Standard of Excellence WebAwards.

Agencies or companies winning six or more WebAwards in 2006 include the following:

Agency – # of Website awards in 2006

R/GA – 19

Zugara – 18

E-Site Marketing – 13

Arnold Worldwide -12

Bridge Worldwide – 12

Refinery, Inc. – 12

BrowserMedia – 11

CondeNet  – 11

Aristotle – 10

Avenue A / Razorfish – 9

Bbdigital (Blattner Brunner) -9

Vision Internet Providers – 9

Critical Mass – 8

Open World Ltd. – 8

Organic – 8

2Advanced Studio – 7

American Academy of Dermatology – 7

Biggs-Gilmore – 6

Brulant – 6

Buena Vista Pictures Marketing – 6

Hanson Inc. – 6

Hubbard One – 6

imc2 – 6

JWT Specialized Communications – 6

MagiClick – 6<

Mullen  – 6

Ogilvy One – 6

Racepoint Group – 6

TM Interactice – 6

VML Inc – 6

WhippleHill Communications – 6

The WebAwards’ 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, web 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 web sites within their industry to win the Best of Industry awards.

Entries also compete against a standard of excellence to win Outstanding Web site and Standard of Excellence WebAwards. Each web 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 received a score of 60 or greater, they receive the Outstanding Web site award. Entries that scored between 50 and 59.9 receive the Standard of Excellence.

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

The 2006 WebAward Competition sponsors include:

BURST! Media (www.burstmedia.com)

Misukanis & Odden (www.misukanisodden.com)

SimpleFeed (www.simplefeed.com)

Register.com (www.register.com)

NewsUSA (www.newsusa.com)

AdTools Inc(www.adtoolsinc.com.)

Small Army (www.smallarmy.net),

Perseus Development Corp (www.perseus.com)

Top Rank (www.toprankmarketing.com)

Creative Chocolate Printing Company (www.CreativeChocolatePrinting.com)

PRWeb (www.prweb.com)

Media Sponsors include:

Website Services Magazine (www.websiteservices.com)

AdRants (www.adrants)

MarketingVox (www.marketingvox.com)

MediaPost (www.wediapost.com)

eComXpo (www.ecomxpo.com)

Ad:Tech (www.ad-tech.com)

Macworld (www.macworldexpo.com).

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 ninth year, the WebAward Competition has become the premier award event for Web developers and marketers worldwide.

If you entered the Web Marketing Association’s 2006 WebAwards and have not received an email notice from us, please return to your nominator account for the results for your entries.

The Complete results, including Best of Show and Top Agency Awards, will be released publically on September 27, 2006 on our Website and through PR Web.

I’m please to report that the judging for the 2006 WebAward
Competition for Website Development is now complete. We will tabulate the
results and selecting the award winners over the next few weeks. Winners will
be announced in mid-September.

The Web Marketing Association would like to thank the many
industry professionals who acted as judges for this year’s award program. These Internet experts provided their time
and expertise to help improve the overall standard of excellence for web design
and development. We are deeply in their debt.

The 2006 WebAward Call for Entries is now complete and
judging will begin on Monday.

The winners will be announced in September, 2006

Good luck to all of our participants and a special thanks to
all of the expert judges who are preparing to review the 2006 entries.

The Web
Marketing Association has announced that the deadline for entering its 10^th
annual WebAward Competition (www.webaward.org) has been extended until
June 15th to allow final entries to be submitted and existing entries to be
edited if needed. The WebAwards are the Internet’s premier award competition that judges website development against an
ever increasing Internet standard of excellence and against peer sites within
an industry.

A complete list of past winners and the entry form for
companies who wish to compete for 2006 honors can be found at www.webaward.org.

Web sites are judged on design, innovation, content, technology, interactivity, navigation and
ease of use. Each WebAward entry is judged against other entries in its industry
category and then against an overall standard of excellence. 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, medical, small business, travel,
advertising, transportation, and government.  New categories for this year include
Healthcare Providers, Medical Equipment, Fashion and Technology.

1) A Best of Industry award means your the best and you can prove it!

2) Your mom would be proud of you.

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

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

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

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

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

8) A link to webaward.org will help your site’s search engine
rankings because you will be linked to a site with a high Google
PageRank.

9) If you wait until after may 31st, you’ll have to pay a late fee.

10) 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 2006 WebAward Competition for
Website development. Winning accolades in the 2006 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 10th Annual WebAward competition deadline for entry is May 31st, only one week 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.

WebAward – The award for your award-winning Web site.

Every year we get emails from past judges half way through the competition telling us their email address has changed or filters stopped the messages from getting through.

If you are a past WebAward judge and have not received our emails inviting you to participate in the 2006 WebAwards, please contact us ASAP as we are finalizing the judging panel.

Please contact us through www.webaward.org

We need your help to spread the word about the WebAward competition. As the premier recognition program for Web site development, we have grown each year because Internet professionals, like yourself, have gotten the word out to other Internet professionals by email, in blogs and even face to face.

The Web Marketing Association
is a volunteer organization and it’s through efforts like these that the
WebAwards can set the standard of excellence for Web sites in 96 industries.
However, this year, we have made it even more advantageous to tell your friends
and co-workers about the WebAwards.

WebAward Referral Program

To reward those who tell others about the WebAwards, this year we are offering a $20 referral bonus per referral for each person who gets someone new to enter the WebAwards. It’s our way of rewarding those who help us the most.

To qualify you simply need a WebAward nominator account from WebAward.org. Give the email address associated
with this account to everyone who you recommend the WebAwards to and when they
enter and include your email address, you’ll receive a check from the Web
Marketing Association as our way to say thank you.

WebAward.org has complete details,
so tell a friend and log in to your nominator account and watch your referral
bonuses add up.

Call for WebAward Judges

Another way you can help
support the WebAwards is to nominate yourself as a judge. We are looking for experienced Internet professionals – interactive creative directors, graphic designers, marketing managers,
webmasters, heads of agencies, among others – to help adjudicate the entries
for the 2006 WebAwards.

While most of the volunteer
judges return each year because of the valuable insights that can be obtained
by judging, the growth of entries requires us to add new judges each year. Judges are assigned a number of entries to review within a three week time frame beginning June 17^th.

If you or someone you know
are interested in participating as a WebAward judge, please use the judges
nomination form on WebAward.org

Conference season

At WebMaster World in Boston we gave-a-way a video iPod to Daniel Bourgeois interactive marketing manager of Wynn Resorts. The following week, David
Mullings of Random Media won another video iPod ad ad:tech San Francisco. Congratulations
to all of our prize winners and to the conference sponsors for putting on
outstanding industry conferences.

On my way to ad:tech in San Francisco, I read MarketingSherpa’s brand-new E-commerce Benchmark Guide. I am a big fan of MarketingSherpa’s work and try to get everything they publish on Web development. We were able to get a 22-page executive summary of MarketingSherpa’s E-commerce Benchmark Guide for the readers of Interactive Briefing. You can read more about it in the “For Our readers” section of our newsletter.

The annual WebAward program
is shaping up to be both a great way to gain visibility for your self and your
Web site, but also valuable feedback to help guide future development and
benchmark your progress. We hope everyone takes advantage of this program.

And remember to tell your
friends about it too.

The Web Marketing Association is pleased to announce the
call for judges for its 10^th annual international WebAward competition.
The WebAwards is the standards-defining competition that sets industry
benchmarks based on the seven criteria of a successful Web site.  Judges
will consist of a select group of Internet professionals who
have direct experience designing and managing Web sites, including
members of the media, interactive creative directors, site designers, content
providers and webmasters – with an in-depth
understanding of the current state-of-the-art in Web site development and
technology.

To nominate yourself or another Internet Professional,
please use our Judges Nomination Form.

“The WebAwards is different from other Web site award programs because we’re not just a beauty pageant focused on name recognition and design,” said William Rice, president of the Web Marketing Association. “For 10 years, industry professionals have provided the backbone of our award program and helped thousands of Web sites get the recognition they deserve. As a WebAward judge, you are helping to set the standard of excellence for all web site development. Judging challenges you by having you visit and review web sites that you normally would not visit. Being a judge helps develop a critical eye to the many facets of leading-edge web development.”

Judging for the 2006 WebAwards will take place in June
through August, with winners announced in September. Mark Kingdon, CEO of
Organic, Inc. has been selected to lead the judging panel
this year. Past judges have included top
executives from leading organizations such as Ogilvy Interactive, Saatchi &
Saatchi, Blattner Brunner, Comedy Central, Sun Microsystems, Refinery, Euro
RSCG, EPB Interactive, New York Post
Interactive, The Cincinnati Enquirer,
J. Walter Thompson, Xerox, Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Modem Media, and
Answerthink.

2006 Call For Entry Still Underway

The Web Marketing Association is now accepting entries for
the 10^th annual WebAward competition. The WebAwards evaluate Web sites in 96
industries and defines benchmarks based on the seven essential criteria of
successful Website development. The
deadline for entry is May 31, 2006.

Your Web site will be judged on seven criteria: design,
innovation, content, technology, interactivity, copy writing and ease of use. Each WebAward
entry is judged against other entries in its industry category and then against
an overall standard of excellence. WebAward Judges consist of a select group of Internet
professionals with an in-depth understanding of the current
state-of-the-art in Website development and technology.

All entrants receive valuable feedback from the judging
panel as well as a report detailing their performance compared to their
industry average. If you win a
WebAward, you also have an outstanding marketing opportunity to publicize and
drive traffic to your site.

A complete list of past winners and this year’s entry form
can be found at www.webaward.org.