You have until May 31st to enter this competition, so don't procrastinate too much longer! The web2awards were established by Printing Industries of America to recognize, honor, and elevate standards for websites that are print-centric. The mission of the web2awards is to honor excellence in the various categories of print-related websites.

Julie Shaffer, Vice President, Digital Technologies, Printing Industries of America, said, “The web2award competition was born a couple of years ago, at a time when internet-enabled solutions, like customer ecommerce sites and direct marketing campaigns involving personalized URLs, were becoming mainstream offerings for many print service providers.  At the same time, printers had started to rebrand their businesses as “solution providers” which usually involving a newly designed website. So there was all this great new web-based activity but, while there were a number of award programs for websites, there were none that even had a category for printers. We decide to rectify that and came up with the web2awards.”

The web2awards competition is open to all organizations and individuals who are involved in designing, managing, or implementing websites that are “print-centric,” meaning that the website’s focus must include sale/exchange of printed material and/or promote a printer’s capabilities on the Internet or an Intranet. In the case of case studies involving social media, cross-media campaigns, and promotional sites, there has to be at least one printed component of the program. You don't have to be a Printing Industries Association member to enter, although the entry fee is higher for non-members.

New this year is the People's Choice Awards. So even if you aren't entering, you can have a voice relative to the quality of the submissions. Once all entries have been received and processed, they will be featured on the competition website, where, starting June 6th, the community will be able to vote for their favorites. Julie Schaffer of the Printing Industries of America, said, ""As social media and user participation becomes more prevalent, we thought we'd implement that into this year's web2awards. The People's Choice Award will be picked by the public and will encourage printers to utilize their social media channels to spread the word and put their collected community to action."

Even if you think your website isn't quite there, it can't hurt to enter.  All entrants get feedback from the panel of judges that will help them in improving their sites, and that alone is worth more than the price of admission.

If you need more information, the official contact is Sam Shea. He can be reached at [email protected] or 412-259-1747.