Web Awards Finalists Announced – Which Site Is The Most Influential Irish One EVER?

The finalists for the 2015 Realex Payments Web Awards have been announced

Apart from the “standard” categories there is also an award for “The Most Influential Irish Website Ever”.

This is an award that fascinates me and the shortlist is a very interesting cross-section of new, old, serious and “light”:

• UCC – they were one of the first organisations in Ireland to setup a website back in the early 1990s. Some of their staff were key figures in the early evolution of what became the “web”
• Irish Times – another pioneer of the web in Ireland. I remember reading the Irish Times using a mail to web gateway system back before I had “proper” internet access at university
• RTÉ – Another early adopter, RTE’s online presences is one of the most popular sites in Ireland and their digital services such as the RTE Player have won many awards over the years
• TheJournal – from the guys behind Daft.ie, The Journal has grown quickly to be one of Ireland’s most popular media sites
• Done Deal – Ireland’s answer to eBay?
• Revenue.ie – Death and taxes?
• Broadsheet.ie –  Pretty self-explanatory
• Boards.ie – Setup originally by a bunch of gamers Boards.ie grew to become one of the biggest and most popular sites in Ireland. I’m not sure how much traffic it’s getting these days, but it’s still one of the more popular and influential sites in the Irish webosphere (can I still use that term?)

Disclosure: Blacknight is a sponsor of the event