awards

The Crunchies are to technology what the Oscars are to Hollywood and January 2010 will be the third incarnation of the start-up and technology sector's annual awards ceremony hosted by TechCrunch, GigaOm and VentureBeat.

Last year's winners included Google Reader (best service), Cooliris (best design), Shop Savvy (best application) and Facebook (best overall start up).

TechCrunch Europe's grand fromage, Mike Butcher, offers the following advice,

"...it will be of interest to European startups that they have a good chance if they nominate themselves in Best International StartUp

Congratulations to Dom, Seb and Juliet and the crew at Plug-in Media on their win at last night's Children's BAFTA awards held at London's Park Lane Hilton.

Juliet joined the Digital Mission to LA & San Francisco earlier this year as part of the group of 14 companies showcasing the best of the UK's digital talent. Applications for the South by South West interactive trip are still open.

Hosted by favoured kids presenters, Dick'n'Dom the team picked up the Interactive BAFTA, a hefty golden visage, for Big and Small Online produced with Kindle Entertainment for CBeebies. Check out the post-award interview with the winners.

Digital Mission to SXSWi is back for it's second year after the success of the mission to Austin in March 2009.

The mission to SXSWi is a great opportunity to take advantage of the publicity and profile from a group of British companies attending SXSWi.

The applications for the mission are open until Fri 4th December. The form is pretty painless and shouldn't take more than 20 mins to complete. There's also lots more info about the application criteria on the Digital Mission website.

The BIMA Awards 2009 have rolled around again, with the presentations taking place on 19th Nov.

The awards celebrate the innovative work of UK digital companies and this year has seen a record number of agencies applying.

The Shortlist has just been announced showcasing some of the UK's brightest digital talent and, the good news, there are still a few precious tickets left.

Categories range from display and interactive advertising, online games, mobile to social media and word of mouth marketing. Those companies lucky enough to be shortlisted are some of the best the UK digital sector has to offer and with the BBC iPlayer in the best website section, T-Mobile's "Life is for Living" in the viral seeding category and the MINI Convertible launch up for an e-mail marketing award they are some of the most memorable campaigns from the last year too.

Xchangeteam are launching their Freelancer of the Year Awards 2009 and they’re looking for entries across the spectrum of Marketing, Media and Communications.

Since their first incarnation back in 2003, the awards have been recognising the work of freelancers in these mediums across the UK.

Nominations can come from peers, colleagues, an appreciative manager or from the freelancer themself so if you know an exceptional freelancer, or indeed if you are one, get in touch. To date the highest number of nominations for the awards are 350 but Xchangeteam are looking to beat that in 2009.

The application deadline for our NYC Digital Mission is fast approaching, September 18th to be precise, and here at Chinwag Towers we thought we’d give you a flash back to one of our most popular panel debates, Transatlantic Troubleshooting held during our Digital Mission at SXSWi 2009.

It’s bound to get those of you who’re waiting until next week to get your details over to us to get a wriggle on.

March 2010 might still seem a distant dream, but the organiser's of South by South West interactive (SXSWi to its friends) are already cracking on with preparations for the conference line-up with the opening of their Panel Picker.

This year sees over three times as many panels from the British digital industry, with over 60 panels, up from 18 last year, making it to SXSWi's Panel Picker where the public get to rate and comment on the panels being put forward.

The public feedback is designed to help organisers refine presentations and panels, and makes up 30% of decision-making progress.

Below is the comprehensive list (add comments if we've missed any) of panels submitted by the Brits. Good luck to all those in the Panel Picker machine...

Chinwag is chuffed to be working with the BIMA crew as social media partner for the 2009 BIMA Awards.

November might seem a way-off, but the deadline to enter is only a few days away. 7th August to be precise. The committee have been hard at work to re-vamp the format including more categories, more transparent judging and important these days, a more affordable event.