Offline popularity translated into online awards on the weekend as a number of established music industry figures picked up awards for their Web sites at the first annual Australian Music Awards, the ONYAs
Silverchair proved to be a big winner of the night, taking away the Best Australian Internet site and Best Australian Artist Music Fan site. Other major awards went to JJJ, Mushroom Records and the Big Day Out.
At an awards ceremony at the the ABC Radio Centre's Goossens Hall, awards were handed out for the best online sites in categories such as best artist site, best Web radio site, best TV station Web site and Best Music Industry Internet Resource.
ABC's JJJ Web site repeated its success at last year's Internet Industry Awards, by winning the award for Best Music Radio Station. Mushroom records won the award for best independent label while the Best Online Music Event was won by Telstra for its Big Day Out coverage. Telstra also won the award for Best Online Music Magazine being won by its Addicted to Noise site.
In the e-commerce arena, Chaos Music won the Best Australian Online CD Retailer, while Best Overseas Online CD Retailer went to CDNow.com.
The winners were determined by popular vote, with the over 15,000 votes posted during the two month voting period. Despite the large number of votes, the organisers only encountered a small amount of voting irregularity, with two bands and one retailer suspended for suspected voting problems.
