Here come the spiders... again

06-08-2008

by Ralph Averbuch

To its credit Ireland’s Golden Spiders, the country’s ‘premier’ web awards event, has managed to suffer both the good and the bad. But the web, in just ten short years, bears little resemblance to that which existed when the Spiders were first thought up as a lucrative money-making exercise. Of course, just time itself has afforded the awards an air of authenticity. In the past some have sniped at the way the event is organised, judged and paid for, citing this as reason enough to argue that they lack legitimacy. But the reality is that Ireland needs some means of recognising local efforts to represent the best that the country can muster in a globalised market. It’s great that such big internet players as Google and Microsoft have major European operations in Ireland, but the future success of the wider knowledge economy will only be realised by small and innovative home grown talent. So whilst some quarters will always look askance at the Spiders, they perform an important role in, at least attempting to define those sites and services which set the bar for the rest of the industry. Now, who to call to blag a seat...