Winners of ArmNet Awards 2011 announced

On December 3, late in the evening ArmNet Awards 2011 competition was over and closed by official awards ceremony. The annual contest ArmNet Awards, organized already for the second time, is designed to evaluate the achievements of the Armenian sector of the Internet and contribute to its further content development, as well as to contribute to the promotion of new websites.

The contest is organized by SPMS, Orange Armenia and Internet Society of Armenia NGO.

International jury chose the best web sites of the year in 6 nomination categories, and two special prizes were granted to websites having a strong social impact.

http://armenianmonuments.org was announced the best web site in “Design and usability” nomination category, by leaving behind http://daronmouradian.com, http://vtv.am and http://tashirpizza.am. The jury notably assessed harmony of the interface, content and format of this web site.

The winner in “Breakthrough of the year” nomination category was http://parliamentmonitoring.am. The websites http://1in.am, http://civilnet.tv and http://ecolur.org also had similar chances to win in this nomination category.

The best in “Innovation” nomination category was http://annoisy.org website with its original solutions. http://publicdata.am, http://parliamentmonitoring.am and http://givemeinfo.am websites also pretended to the prize in this nomination category.

The winner in “Technological development” nomination category was http://yerevanguide.am, by gaining more votes than http://webtv.am, http://eventot.com and http://yerevan.am.

The prize for the “Best content” nomination category was granted to http://genocide-museum.am. http://ecolur.org, http://chtesutyun.arnet.am and http://hra.am were also nominated in this category.

This year Orange special price, intended for the best mobile site, was again granted to an information portal. On Jury’s proposal, company’s direction decided to give it to m.lragir.am. Though few sites were nominated in this category, there were several times more participants than in 2010, which reflects the development of this direction.

Bruno Duthoit, Orange Armenia CEO, said: “The world trends show that more and more people use their phones to surf the internet, and Armenia is not an exception. With this awards we not only want to congratulate the website for the best mobile adaptation, but also to stimulate others to develop their websites in this direction”

For the first time, this year a prize was give in “People’s choice” category. The SMS vote, which defined the winner in this category, lasted from November 28 till December 3. 8224 unique subscribers took part in the vote out of which 1259 voted for http://newsinfo.am news portal. Grand Prix of ArmNet Awards 2011 was awarded to http://parliamentmonitoring.am. Grand Prix is awarded to the site, having gained the most votes of the jury in all nominations. http://parliamentmonitoring.am was chosen by the jury as the best web site due to its proportional technological, content and design development.

“As in 2010, this year as well ArmNet Awards allowed to discover a lot of interesting websites. I advise everyone to visit the websites that are nominated, as in the result of our long and difficult work – and we have considered one by one 569 websites – we have found out really interesting pages, that describe in the best way the content development of Armenian web” said Samvel Martirosyan, jury chairman.

At the end of awards ceremony http://granish.org and http://publicdata.am web sites were awarded with special prizes by Jury for their specific and improtant role in their respective domains.