Back to work today and just about recovered from the 2010 Irish Web Awards. It was a huge night, in more ways than one — this year something like 450 people packed out the Mansion House in swanky D2 style, complete with tuxedo’d brass band.

These awards have grown tremendously since they started 3 years ago; the first year, I knew absolutely everyone and it was more like an Irish Internet reunion. The second year, I knew maybe half the people and had a ball meeting the other half, even if I had to stay up until 5am to do it. This year, I couldn’t even find the 1/3rd of the people I knew, and basically gave up on reaching that goal at around 1 am. The really sexy, fast and flawless iPad check in system for tickets that John Blackbourne put together worked so well that it made me think we might need an iPhone app next year to geo-locate individuals in the crowd; I’m pretty sure the Irish Web Awards could raise a nice packet for a charity of choice with one of those! (I’d totally buy it, except I’d have to buy an iPhone to use it…)

The production values this year were super-impressive; the venue, the lighting and the band together with the A/V for the shortlisted sites and the granite awards themselves really bumped the Awards up a notch, but the parts that give these awards their unique and fun flavour – Rick O’Shea’s brilliant MCing, the coveted Made in Hollywood props, the totally class cupcakes, this year’s ice cream truck! – were all there in full force to keep the IWAs true to their roots and deliver a great night out.

Damien Mulley, the sponsors, the volunteers and Realex all deserve a standing ovation for showing that you can deliver a class event like this year’s IWAs for €30 a head. There are only four big web awards do’s each year in Ireland, and while the others are much more formal, sit-down dinners, I have yet to eat a black tie chicken meal that was worth the extra €90 in ticket price. Seriously, screw that – this is the way to do it.

I was, obviously, delighted that James Whelan Butchers scored a gong in the Best SME/Small Business Website category. Katherine Nolan and I worked on that site for nearly a year and it was very unfortunate she was unable to be there to enjoy the moment; we took that site live in September after many months of very hard graft, barely making the IWA deadline and I’m glad we were able to get it into this year’s awards.

A mere four weeks after launch, James Whelan Butchers picked up the award for Best SME Website at the 2010 Irish Web Awards. It barely made the September entry deadline, which was something of a milestone as Katherine Nolan and I began development on this site a full year before.

JamesWhelanButchers.com features an ecommerce front end that is simple and easy for customers to use and belies the incredibly functionally complex backend built by Katherine, integrating multi-part pricing, barcode scanning, dispatch integration and SMS updates. The only word to describe this build is “epic.” The site also features video guides, a recipe archive, a blog, a newsletter and full social media integration.