Anyone can nominate anything for a New Media Award, and submissions range from the informative to the entertaining. Here is a selection of sites that didn't make the shortlist this year
Dairy UK: Find Me A Milkman
www.findmeamilkman.net
Of all the organisations poised to capitalise on online grocery shopping, you would think dairies would be near the top of the list, with their well-established networks of trusted, regular deliveries, using, environmentally-friendly electric vehicles. And maybe we have been spoiled by the Web 2.0 hype to expect Google maps and satellite-navigation updates on everything from "Where's my nearest recycling centre?" to online bus timetables.
We are not saying that a site called "Find Me A Milkman" should necessarily, on learning your postcode, present you with a gallery of potential milkmen (or women!), complete with a click-and-choose price-list of mouthwatering local produce, eBay-style customer ratings, and which jaunty pop tune you'd like to hear whistled along your garden path as you stagger to breakfast each morning. But Dairy UK's Find Me A Milkman? "currently under construction" - interaction is limited to "please forward your delivery details - name, address and postcode - to info@dairyuk.org and we'll put you in touch". It's a start, but not likely to ring the alarm bells at Tesco or Ocado.
West Yorkshire Police: City Zone game
www.wycityzones.com
Faced with the popularity of video games where players aren't encouraged to obey the law, West Yorkshire Police have come up with an online world where 11-14 year-olds can "Stop thieves, rescue cats, stage concerts, stop drug abuse" and generally "Make the city a better place to live". Youngsters expecting an XBox-esque cocktail of car chases and shoot-outs may be disappointed, however, as the action primarily involves plodding round a (colourfully animated) town centre, chatting with the residents and - in one early challenge - picking up a Tax Credits leaflet from outside the Citizens Advice Bureau and delivering it to the local goth.
"Grand Theft Auto" it isn't, but its heart is in the right place: part of community policing has to be about talking to people and getting to know their individual concerns. Unfortunately, while you move your character around with the arrow keys and space bar, you have to switch to the mouse whenever anyone says anything to you - a heinous crime against intuitive usability for anyone with less than three hands to spare. Sure, we appreciate that solving "the problems on the street" is sometimes tedious and repetitive hard work - but did the game really have to be?
David Dunkley Gyimah: View Magazine
www.viewmagazine.tv
Nominated numerous times in the "Independent information", "Education", "Innovation" and "Contribution to civic society" categories, this was described as a " hybrid of broadbandcasting (video and audio) and magazine publishing, predicated on Integrated multi-media (MI.I)". And if you're having problems imagining what that would actually look like, the UK Press Gazette compares it to a futuristic Tom Cruise thriller: "Like stepping into the movie Minority Report".
In other words: it's a flickering chequerboard of video clips, (seemingly unrelated) audio snippets, windows-within-windows of "How-to-navigate" advice, flashing numbers and progress bars. There is no denying it's exciting, though this year's judges - no strangers to the world of multimedia - also found it "baffling". They were left wondering whether web video is better suited to simple sites like YouTube.com, while full-on sensory assaults might be more at home in the realm of sci-fi movies.
