The ONYAs Closing Soon

nparker — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:51:00 GMT

I’m very happy to announce that we (Microsoft NZ) has chosen to sponsor Webstock again in 2010.

Once again there is a fantastic group of speakers set to visit our shores.

This year the format is changing a little bit closing on the Friday night with “The ONYAs” awards that celebrate New Zealand’s web industry.

We wanted to create some awards that meant something to the industry, that were credible and relevant. We wanted some awards that focused on the web and didn't relegate that to a category amongst broader design awards. And we wanted the awards to be judged by the best people we could find.

Along with our conference sponsorship I have choden to sponsor the "best accessibility" category of the awards.

The awards feature world class judges including Alex Wright (Director of User Experience and Product Research at The New York Times) and will reward some of the best Web projects that NZ has to offer.

The nomination for the awards are closing next Monday 9th November so if you have been working on a web project that you believe stands out above the rest I strongly suggest that you enter it in the ONYAs.

Some of the great new .NET projects that I can think of off the top of my head include

If you are the creative force behind projects like these what are you waiting for?

Webstoked!

nparker — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:52:00 GMT

WARNING I'm going to break the first rule of fight club and link to tweets! Move along now if you are offended.

My involvement with the Webstock Festival started a couple of years ago. Back then the concept of bringing web celebes to en-zud was something we just had to be a part of. After a bit of arm twisting I convinced Tony to make the trip ;)

My posts from Webstock06 Post 1 & 2

Two years on I like to think as an industry the "Web" has evolved a lot. Our stand presence IMO has also come along way...

Yes that iMac is running the Silverlight content DVD that I hacked together and threw into everyone's Webstock bag.

They say good things come in pairs and Webstock08 was no exception.

Both Verb and ourselves chose to create Photo Booths with our stands something that was not lost on the expressive attendees! The irony was we took the low tech approach with Playing Cards, a camera, a Vegas backdrop and a MIX08 Valentines theme. While Verb built and entire digital, flickr enable photo booth in .NET!

The results on the day complemented each other quite well.

Although I must say some employed interesting tactics to increase the views on their photos.

Other .NET champion sponsors Provoke and Intergen were also well represented at Webstock.

[Video]

I must say I'm very impressed by the way that the majority of the international webnorati mingled with the rest of us. Amanda made the most of the opportunity that was presented! Dan from Simple bits summed it up nicely.

It was fantastic meeting Molly Holzschlag and we had some great conversations about everything Microsoft. Of course Molly was on her best behaviour ;)

Some of my favourite moments from the event were as follows:

1. Chatting with Mr Flickr Cal Henderson - Hey I didn't know we hid the location info from displaying in the EXIF data by default... that's cool.

2. Having dinner with Michael Lopp ("Don't fall in love with products .. it creates ponies!") from apple... listening to him respond to questions about what he is working on with "now I can't talk about that ;)"

3. Tom Coates talking Hardware + Software + Services, Fire Eagle and Flickr stats 2264930075 anyone?

4. Tom Coates classic quote... "Twitter is a service that presents error messages on the Internet"

5. Scott Berkun showed that people who worked on Internet Explorer are not at all evil ;) - Plugs from Felicity, Nat and Deb.

6. Jason Santa Maria - Brilliant - Design, Storytelling (later Matt formally declared his love)- great examples - http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com

7. A Kiwi winning the PowerPoint Karaoke Idol!

8. The candidness of the Trade Me story continues to entertain.

9. The Google Dinner followed by the late Friday night social event.

Of course Microsoft got the normal tongue in cheek bashing during the event (as did the new villain Google). Interesting though countless presenters and attendees mentioned Photosynth and Virtual Earth and although it is not representative of the Webstock audience you can't deny the IE stats!

Thanks to Tash, Mike and the others for once again putting on an untouchable event! I loved my 5 minutes of fame in the main theatre kicking off the 8x5's.

I'll send an update when the actual session videos go online.

Now my focus changes to MIX next week in Vegas where I'm happy to be once again joined by other webstockers Molly, Tash and Kelly. Does the circuit never end?

Remember if you are (like webstockers Verb, Intergen, Provoke, Signify, Xero and Trade Me) building a web based business on Microsoft technology in New Zealand and you want to get access to the tools of the trade check out our Web Partner program.

Also check out the Webstock - FriendFeed at http://friendfeed.com/webstock

Tags: webstock08, NZWC

Nigel Parker's Outside Line : webstock

The ONYAs Closing Soon

Webstoked!