By Business & Finance 
eircom Spider presenters Jennifer Maguire and Bernard O’Shea with Grand Prix winners, Kevin Godley and John Holland of WholeWorldBand and Gary Disley, eircom Business Solutions.
As well as scooping an award for Best App and Innovative Use of Technology in Digital Marketing, WholeWorldBand was also named the Grand Prix winner at the 2014 eircom Spider Awards in The Convention Centre Dublin tonight. The awards, the longest standing and most prestigious digital awards in Ireland, reward Irish businesses and community organisations for digital excellence.
Based in Dublin, WholeWorldBand (WWB) is a free iPhone and iPad app that allows anyone to easily make music and videos that can be shared and enjoyed worldwide. The app already has users ranging from music industry heavyweights, such as Ronnie Wood (The Rolling Stones), Stewart Copeland (The Police), Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music), Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), and New Model Army, as well as thousands of beginners and up-and-coming musicians collaborating together. The app was launched at the end of 2013 and is now live in over 100 countries on the Apple App Store (an addressable global market of $5.9bn).
WWB acts as a virtual recording studio: users pick a recording session and contribute a vocal, instrumental, visual, or anything they feel like adding using just the camera and microphone in their iOS device. They can share their creation via social media through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Soundcloud etc. WWB’s aim is to be a major player in how music is created, shared and monetised in the digital age. The majority of users are between 19 and 34 and can be found in the North America, South America and the UK.
This year’s Rising Star award was presented to Clara Kelleher who has worked with digital agency eightytwenty since 2010. Kelleher has also worked with Médecins Sans Frontières and Amnesty International and also has strong links with the NGO community in Ireland through her work as Charities Coordinator for Electric Picnic. She has delivered innovative work for both consumer and non-profit clients including the Bulmers deCider Augmented Reality app, the Asthma Coach app, and the recent Living with Dementia campaign for the Alzheimer Society of Ireland. Kelleher has also worked internationally, most notably, with the Kofi Annan Foundation and was also part of the team successfully hosted the One Young World Summit in Dublin last month.
Mark Little scooped the Internet Hero Award for his work with Storyful – the world’s first social news agency. Little leads a team of journalists and technologists who discover and verify the most compelling content on platforms like YouTube and Twitter. His company works with the biggest news organisations and social networks in the world, including ABC News and the New York Times. Little has more than two decades of experience in journalism; he was an award-winning foreign correspondent for RTÉ and a former presenter and the first Washington correspondent of current affairs programme, Prime Time. He has covered some of the biggest stories of our age, including the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the election of US President Barack Obama. He has also written three books about the US and world affairs.
In total, 24 awards were presented on the night, honouring online and digital achievement in categories such as social media, mobile apps, digital game, innovative use of technology, financial services and education. Each of the categories in the 2014 eircom Spider Awards is designed to acknowledge and promote business and community enterprise through technological advancements, innovation and e-commerce.
Chairman of the judging panel and marketing director, eircom Business Solutions, Gary Disley commented: “It’s really fantastic to see such talent, innovation and creativity – tonight’s winners are not just keeping pace but they are blazing a trail across many sectors of Irish business. Our winners demonstrate that being truly digital, is about much more than a nicely designed website, it’s about delivering a rich digital experience using the latest technology and maximising digital tools to further enhance our day to day experiences. I would like to thank everyone who entered the awards and thanks also to the judges who did tremendous work this year.”
Commenting on the winner of the Grand Prix Award, Disley added: “WholeWorldBand is a truly deserving winner of this award. The judges were blown away by the creativity, simplicity and exceptional user experience for this app. It fundamentally changes the way we can create and share music. A ringing endorsement for the app is the fact that so many well know and credible artists are users – WholeWorldBand has made huge progress and achieved phenomenal in a very short space of time. The future is certainly very bright for them.”
The full list of winners at the 2014 eircom Spider Awards is as follows:
- ELearning – Medical Exam Tutor
- Digital Game – Life After Us: Fading Light
- Small Agency of the Year – Artizan
- Big Agency of the Year – Web Together
- Sport – Pledge Sports
- Financial Services – Eagle Alpha
- Business 2 Business – IDA Ireland
- Digital Retail Excellence – Madinks
- News & Entertainment – NOVA.ie
- Charitable & Non-Profit Organisations – Alzheimer’s Ireland
- Listings – Sherry Fitzgerald
- Travel & Leisure – Fota Wildlife Park
- Social Media – Electric Ireland
- Best Campaign – Electric Ireland- Power Ballads
- User Experience – Appleberry Press
- Best App – WholeWorldBand
- Digital Geography/Location Based Services – All-Island Research Observatory
- Innovative Use of Technology in Digital Marketing – Whole World Band
- Web Analytics & Optimisation – Starcom for SuperValu Online Shopping
- Rich Media – Heineken Stage Fright
- Irish Language – COGG.ie
- Rising Star – Clara Kelleher
- Internet Hero – Mark Little
- Grand Prix – WholeWorldBand
