The annual Internet Standard Assessment Report (ISAR) and WebAwards honored the best of the best last week. While this is mostly an American event and contest, the Awards have received submissions from 53 other countries. Leading the international award parade were websites from Canada with 225 awards followed by Hong Kong with 119 awards.
Those countries receiving the best overall scores on average were Spain, Thailand, New Zealand, Taiwan and Canada. The country with the worst scores on average is Brazil, followed by Japan, United Arab Emirates, India and France. In short, the Brazilians look dam sexy in those skimpy volleyball outfits, but aren’t so hot at websites; Canadians are very good at websites, but look embarrassingly pathetic in Brazilian volleyball shorts. In fact, ask a Canadian to spell volleyball and they’ll reply with a smile, “H-O-C-K…”
It’s good to know that ISAR (run by the Web Marketing Association) places more emphasis on substance than style. In fact, these guys just say ‘no’ to skimpy and embrace good old boring. The scoring is based on eight criteria:
• Design
• Innovation
• Content
• Copywriting
• Technology
• Interactivity
• Ease of Use
Note the heavy emphasis on content, and not even a mention of ‘advertising’ despite it coming from the WMA; no flash, no rock n’ roll, no beach bikini. If ever there was one, a strong indication indeed that content is still king.
The winners based on industry also reveal an interesting trend: the big winner is non-profit (688 website awards to date). The next closes category barely comes close (consumer goods with 351 awards). Non-profits tend to focus more on content than sizzle; consumer goods tend to focus more on product information.
But the best scoring websites by industry are airlines (with American Airlines winning best individual site) followed by computer retailer websites (Dell Computer). The lowest scoring websites are surprisingly amongst the biggest geeks of all: Internet Service Providers (for shame!). I guess pocket protectors and Mylar covered comics are no longer sexy either…. who knew?
Speaking of sexy: the best intranet went to Merrill Lynch. I had heard Merrill looked good in hot pants… I read it on his blog.
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Toby Ward is an Internet and intranet communications consultant and the founder of Prescient Digital Media. While he spends most of his time working for many clients, he is also the author of www.IntranetBlog.com (but looks pathetic in hot pants).
