TVNZ Netguide Webchallenge 2008 - Another PHAIL (fail) in progress?
So 2008 has arrived and I’m back to my blogging (I hope to keep it up)
Every year, there is the TVNZ Netguide Webchallenge where students across the country submit their website creations to win some awesome prizes such as cameras, phones, printers and other nifty gadgets.
So 2008 has arrived and TVNZ Netguide Webchallenge 2008 has arrived too! I’m quite interested in looking at this year’s entries, especially since how the 2007 competition failed in pretty much all aspects of judging, organisation and promotion (cheers Alana!).
Will this year be better than last year? Or will it just be another failed attempt and running an otherwise awesome competition? With registrations closed soon everyone will start uploading their websites and share them for display. I for one can’t wait, because I love websites (you’d be surprised how much info you pick up from each website).
I really like the new design this year. Looks like they needed the makeover especially from last year. This year’s website looks pretty neat, although they don’t list the prizes out for each category… Looks like Mission-On has jumped on the boat and decided to sponsor the event this year too. There’s change - which is good.
I’m looking forward to the failed websites with shoddy code and designs that look like it came out of a three year old, plagiarized websites, broken links, and flash websites that take a lifetime to load. Don’t get me wrong, there ARE some AWESOME websites that come out - excellent design, excellent content, and fast load time.
So what are you looking forward to this year? Who do you have your bets on winning? To those who have registered, I’d love to see your entries, so feel free to post your website here for us to view and give constructive criticism. What topics are you doing? There’s just so many questions to answer and so little time.
PS: Alana, you rock. Seriously. I’d still like to get your side of the story from last year, so if you’re reading hit me up with a comment or email! (If you want to go under another alias just say you’re interested in me emailing you :P)
@thesuperthree it would have been better if the page could have been centered, but great site
@wade:
We were kinda in a rush, (about 2 hours before the deadline) so we used Flash CS3’s built-in preloader for the site, everything else is custom coded. The slidey things took us a a bit of time to code, so we are quite proud of it!
@gbhall:
The search is probably a bit outdated, as google is unlikely to crawled the website very often, so only the early entries are shown.
WonderingFish is going to be a little strat-up thing hopefully, I’ve worked with two clients so far, with success.
You’ve done an impressive job, its very eye-catching and innovative. It’s probably fine to use a JavaScript library, as most web designers would’ve done the same. The website looks most professional, I hope to be able to do something close to yours soon…
I’m kicking myself now for not putting a message saying that all the coding is original…
See you on MSN sometime, how did you get my gmail address?
@watebe: Yes, the search is outdated but it does seem to be updating approx every few days or so.
Yes I say go for it! Do you mean start-up?
Aww thank you very much! Yes I have noticed that even top designers in the industry use JS library’s, so it seems to be normal practice. Aww, well good luck with XHTML and CSS =p
Hopefully they will assume it is! But you did end up winning something, so all is good! You should know how I got it, but I’ll tell you on MSN since I don’t want people posting everyones details here…
oh yeah I suppose it isn’t very hard if someone tried… I’ve been on MSN for quite sometime now, still waiting
Hopefully I’ll get to know you before the ceremony :P.
ok I have to go on a rant now:
The people at TVNZ are very inconsiderate or to put it harshly, stupid. Why the hell did they schedule a nation-wide thing were people from all over NZ, presumably, are coming, at 9:30am?!?!?!?!
We have to go to school at quarter to 5 in the morning, the very least they could’ve done was move it back a few hours to say 1pm or even 11am would’ve been nice… 9:30am is when everyone rush hour so we’re gonna be stuck in motorway for ages as well…. Don’t they have any consideration for others? I know that you are in AUK, gbhall, lucky you
**end of rant
Just in case I don’t see you on MSN, how long approximately does the ceremony take? They didn’t mention anything about the duration. And will they be providing lunch?
Cheers,
Watbe
Hey is there anyway we can see the winners, without buying the net guide, they really do need to update their site more!
It comes out on the 20th on the website I believe…
I sent them a email - above. here is a copy of it:
The winners are officially announced on Monday 20th of October on http://www.netguide.co.nz
Also, they are announced in the November issue of NetGuide, which goes on sale on the same day.
Awesome Thanks =]] 
Hey watbe… I haven’t been able to get onto MSN today and yesterday but I will be on for sure tomorrow (16th).
Your teacher should know the times as the email says: “Ceremony starts promptly at 10am and goes through to 12pm.”
Also, “Light snacks and nibbles will be provided to all guests after the ceremony.”.
Aww it must suck to get up that early, especially after seeing this: “212 km – about 2 hours 50 mins drive” lol..
lol. The email my teacher got said that we must all arrive at 9:30am at the TVNZ building and that was all… :S
Thanks for the information, it will definitely help us in the planning… Its actually more of a 3.5hrs drive to get to Auckland City from Tauranga….
that was actually watbe - warmer6 and watbe are brothers
you’ll get used to the 3.5 hour drive though, just think of it this way we do that every second weekend =]
Lols at 3.5 hour drive, you have my sympathy
Previous years we got Mc Donalds for free in the city if you go to the prize giving, dunno if it’s the same.
To clarify: Have the results come out yet? It’s still not on the website, so yeah, if you won something, please reply and tell me your placing xD I’m very curious…
Hey the results are here: http://www.netguide.co.nz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=736&Itemid=19
Well I got to say I’m a little disappointed with the top two in the secondary team category. The secondary individual category was a lot better though. Although I think gbhall should of been in the top 3.
Hey, I think I got the best prize though =p
gbhall what did u win? for TVNZ Best New Media / Interactivity Award?
I was dissapointed in a few of the Intermediate students, Ours wasn’t that good, but I was still getting used to the software =].
were any of the winners Still Templates, Just Wondering =]
I think a lot of you are quite arrogant and high-chinned.
This competition isn’t about how awesome you are at photoshop, flash or coding, but in it’s truest essence is about how well you teach the subject. Those skills are suppose to compliment what you’re teaching and not just be a detached eye-candy-like deterrent. Check out any of your textbooks - It’s not overloaded with colours and whacky design - it just does it’s job, and in most cases, does it quite well.
Any one can use photoshop, with the assistance of the myriad of tutorials. The true skill is using it effectively to convey a theme, rather than a collaboration of photoshop tutorials.
Umm..
Its a “web design” competition is all that people are trying to say.. In reality, content should account for absolutely no credit towards the overall mark.. Because if it was a true web challenge you would want to see what people could truly create. Not what any person could research.
The challenge should promote innovation.. it shud try to find the next Mark Zuckerberg or Kevin Rose out there..
Its not called the “Ministry of Education Textbook Learning / Research Challenge”
BTW Anonymous, who on earth are you? A teacher or something?
TVNZ6 NetGuide WebChallenge Results Released!
http://www.tvnz6netguidewebchallenge.co.nz
Discuss Here.
Hmmm I like the winner of the individual category, mainly because the book is an awesome one, and the site design really brings on the sophisticated feel.
Seeing as though MRGS came up on top again, when I saw the site I was very disappointed. One should never really base anything in flash, unless you work in a game company D: FLASH IS OUTDATED PEOPLES. Plus it looks like a template was used, preferably from a web hosting company template.
The third place one I can tell made the design themselves, but the content I believe could have been better…
In my opinion things like design should be much more important overall in such an internet world D: I could spot the flash thing on first glance… maybe they should employ me as one of the judges?
That said, nice to see it’s still going… I wasn’t even paying attention to it, and was surprised someone still found this blog post a year later. Feel free to discuss here ^^
Entered this year, but didn’t get a placing (probably because the content was a bit of-topic)
My favourite entry would also have to be Daniel O’Connors. It was by far the most professional design.
I noticed a lot of plagiarised content in the 3rd place ‘Secondary Web Design - team’ entry (the one with the lime-green background). At least half thier content is copied directly from Wikipedia, which is not only against the competition rules, but is also (although only slightly) against Wikipedia’s license. I’m considering emailing the challenge organisers about it.
The addition of ‘Digital Video/Animation’ and ‘Video Game’ categories is nice, although some of the videos are… not so great.
Yeah, I was interested in the secondary individual results
I didn’t get any place this year but I agree with some parts.
1st Place Individual - Great Gatsby
–Yeah that site just looked good and was informative with a nice layout..Everything was well organized and it just all fell into place perfectly
2nd Place Individual - Not that im being biased but I go to MRGS and in all honesty I quite liked ths site. Yes, I agree that it was fully flash and it is outdated - But all the content on it and the work seems to be original, really long loading time on 256kbp/s BBand but it looks good overall.
3rd Place - Why the hell is that third place??????????????
—–Video game design failed except for 1st place.
—–One of the animations on the lake was cool and the other one was cool too called A different kind of love.
In all seriousness, I think netguide did a way better judging job then last year
Great article thx a lot!