Web awards map way to best sites

For the past three years, the self-styled Academy Awards of the Internet the weighty-sounding Global Information Infrastructure (GII) Awards has recognised Websites which deserve to be hailed as "champions of cyberspace".

This week, 11 Websites were feted as 1997's GII winners at the spring Comdex show in Chicago. Comdex is a showcase for high technology which kicks off in winter in Las Vegas then migrates around the US. The Vegas show is the "real" Comdex the pivotal show for product launches, when technology journalists dash around in a panic, trying to make sure they've seen anything with a remote chance of being the next big thing.

The various lesser Comdexes serve as pilgrimage destinations for the lay consumers scattered across the US, those who think a large concentration of gizmos with computer chips is worth a day out and a monumental battle for parking. The lesser Comdexes also like drawing attention to themselves with an event, and in Chicago, GII was happy to oblige.

Oddly, if perhaps appropriately, the ponderously-named awards come complete with praise from the often ponderous, if well-intentioned, US Vice-President Al Gore. Mr Gore, who is certainly the most digitally-aware top-level politician on the globe, offers this plug:

"The GII Awards confirm our brightest hopes: that the positive uses of high technology will truly open up new opportunities for all Americans and improve our quality of life."

Imagine having a marketing testimonial from the vice-president of the United States! I'm not sure if this demonstrates an enlightened endorsement of the digital age or a mortifying commercialism (who needs a pop song or a past-it actor to sell a product when a world leader will do the job?).

But the award winning sites are well worth checking out, especially if you have a hard time finding wheat rather than chaff as you roam the Web. These are all sites which do something, rather than just hang around on the screen blinking and scrolling and offering bland corporate information.

To be fair, only one award is made to an e-commerce site and that went to online financial services pioneer, Charles Schwab (www.schwab.com).

But all the sites offer innovative content, lively design and some interesting uses of custom-designed applications (as with Schwab's set-up for trading shares over the Web); or intelligent use of common-variety Web technologies, like chat-rooms and bulletin boards (see Getting Real, www.gettingreal.com, a site for teenagers making the transition from high school to the rest of their lives).

Whether you're just learning about the Web or are a seasoned traveller, these sites chosen from 60 finalists out of a field of 900 and judged by some of the Net's luminaries are a gold-mine for getting ideas, understanding the ways in which the Web can be made to work for you, and of course, just having some fun. In addition to the two above, have a look at these other winners, or visit the GII Website (www.gii.com) for tours of all the winning sites:

Dia Center for the Arts (www.diacenter.gov): a New York site full of artworks designed for the Web.

IndyGov (www.IndyGov.org): online democracy for and by the people of Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Body (www.thebody.com): a massive resource and network for people with AIDS and HIV.

ThinkQuest (www.advanced.org/thinkquest/): a teaching and learning resource on education and technology for students and teachers.

OncoLink (www.oncolink.upenn.edu): a site which provides information to patients and families affected by cancer.

Karlin Lillington can be reached at klillington@irish-times.ie