CALL them the crème de la crème of Philippine Web design.

They took center stage as the best works of local web site designers were honored in glitzy and glamorous rites during the 10th Philippine Web Awards (PWA), which techies refer to as “the Webbys.” It was Friday night at the Teatrino Bar and Restaurant, Promenade, Greenhills Commercial Complex, San Juan City.

Sixty-nine web sites competed to be hailed the best and for the People’s Choice awards. (Each of the 15 different categories in the latter was determined via SMS and online voting, a format adopted last year.

Among the top winners who won both awards for their respective categories include Einstein Arts—the Web content developer for Arts and Portfolio— former broadcaster Daniel Razon for the site Celebrities and Personalities, and PLDT-backed Level Up! Games for Lifestyle and Leisure.

Other winners are the UNTV official web site, which bested GMANews.tv, a frontrunner for the News and Media category. Plus, the web sites of Bulacan, Marikina City and San Rafael in Bulacan for the province, city and municipality eLGU categories respectively.

Awards were also given for blogs, corporate, e-commerce, organizations, personal, recreation, schools and SMEs of various industries.

The Most Popular web site of the Year award went to the Church of God International of the religious sect “Ang Dating Daan.”

A special award was given to the best 10-word speech of the night, won by a representative of Pinoy DVD, an e-commerce web site.

TV personality Donita Rose hosted the affair with fellow celebrity Gelli Mateo. Alternative rock bands Join the Club and Brass Monkeys blasted the night with their own brand of musical entertainment after the awards rites.

The panel of judges was composed of foreign and local veteran Web artists, content writers and designers. They evaluated the finalists’ work. The scores were tabulated by accounting firm Punongbayan and Araullo—the 10th Web awards official auditors.

The 10th PWA was presented by trade publication Media G8way Corp., publisher of PC World Philippines, Computerworld Philippines, and Enterprise magazine, together with the Commission on Information and Communications Technology and the National Computer Center. Sponsors were Globe Telecom, Yahoo! Philippines and Dockers. BusinessMirror and Philippine Star were the Web awards’ media partners.

CALL them the crème de la crème of Philippine Web design.

They took center stage as the best works of local web site designers were honored in glitzy and glamorous rites during the 10th Philippine Web Awards (PWA), which techies refer to as “the Webbys.” It was Friday night at the Teatrino Bar and Restaurant, Promenade, Greenhills Commercial Complex, San Juan City.

New tech services firm takes shape

PUBLICLY traded Pacific Online System Corp. (POSC) and Diversified Financial Network Inc. are forming a joint venture to provide technical-service solutions to domestic and foreign businesses.

ORACLE Philippines recently launched the Oracle Global Development and Delivery Center in the country.

Francis Ong, managing director of Oracle Philippines, said the center is a milestone for Oracle’s Philippine unit and will benefit the country in terms of technology development. “Oracle has invested in a dedicated business unit based at this center that will develop cutting-edge solutions for the utilities industry and the public sector in the Philippines and also globally. This center will contribute to the efforts of the global product development teams,” Ong said in a statement.

COMPANIES have so far raised P88.43 billion from initial and additional offerings, surpassing last year’s record of P57.2 billion, the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) reported over the weekend.

A MOVIE production company was the biggest surprise of the week ending November 23 when it continued rising and closed at P1.04.

The performance of Premiere Entertainment Productions Inc. may puzzle the public investors because the company reported a net loss of P2,009,508 in the first nine months of 2007 and a deficit of P395,304,695.

Newly listed Splash Corp. is signing this week a property joint venture with Vista Land, which is majority owned by the family of Senate President Manuel Villar. The property is located near Asian Development Bank in Ortigas Commecial Center.