Winners of this year's Australian Interactive Multimedia Industry Association (AIMIA) awards were announced in Melbourne on Friday night.

Lynne Spender, executive director of AIMIA, said it's the eighth time it has been involved with the awards.

This year there were 386 entries, slightly up on the number received last year.

Spender said new categories this year included Internet television Internet broadband. Forty judges assess entries, looking at areas such as design innovation, useability, and accessibility.

The winners were:

• Multimedia Victoria Award for excellence in interactive advertising and marketing:
  Conrad Jupiters Casino and Conrad International Treasury Casino Web site (Speedwell, QLD)

• The Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Award for excellence in e-commerce:
  Paddy Pallin Web site (@www P/L VIC)

• The Quantum Leap Group Award for excellence in an event site:
  Big Brother Web site (Massive Media, NSW)

• The Iomega Peerless Award for excellence in interactive games:
  Leadfoot CD ROM (Ratbag P/L, SA)

• The Just Super Award for excellence in a lifestyle site:
  Backpacker Essentials Web site (Red Square Productions, NSW)

• The APPLE Award for excellence in arts and culture:
  Mabo--the native title revolution CD ROM (Film Australia in association with Buona notte Productions & Tantamount Productions, NSW). Highly commended in this category was the Queensland Biennial Festival of Music Web site (Zone4 Digital Media QLD).

• The WebHead magazine award for excellence in interactive childrens' entertainment:
  The Playground Web site (ABC New Media, VIC). Highly commended in this category was Health Beats--Body Parts CD ROM (Liquid Animation, QLD), and also EvacU8! from Windy Towers (Lizard Edutainment Pty Ltd t/a Fun-Ed, WA)

• The AUSTRADE Award for excellence in elearning:
  Pilotage Courseware V1.0 CD ROM (emlab-Faculty of Education, Uni of Wollongong,NSW)

• The Australian Award for excellence in information and reference:
  Australia 2030--Investigating the FACTS of Immigration, Ryebuck Media VIC)

• The AIMIA industry award for excellence in Internet best practice:
  ninemsn Homepage (ninemsn, NSW)

• The INVEST UK Award for excellence in interactive television:
  Team Sports Interactive (ICE Interactive, NSW) and Channel [V] iTV (Massive Media, NSW)

• The Welsh Development Agency Award for excellence in Internet broadband:
  ABC Broadband (ABC New Media, VIC)

The Judges Special Award for excellence in student design/production went to the Ultrasuite Web site (Southbank TAFE QLD).

The multimedia Victoria and Apple Computers Award for best of the best 2001 went to emlab, Faculty of Education, Uni of Wollongong, NSW for Pilotage Courseware V1.0 CD ROM and contribution to the industry.

ZDNet Australia's WebHead magazine was one of the sponsors of this year's AIMIA awards.

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