Last night, over a hundred movers and shakers in the web world gathered at the Royal Institution in London for The Good Web Guide’s Website of the Year 2010 Award Reception, which took place as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week.

ANYVAN SCOOPS WEBSITE OF THE YEAR AWARD

Shipping & delivery company, ANYVAN.com, was announced as the winner by ex-BBC Dragon, Doug Richard, who commented:

“Entrepreneurs see problems and manufacture opportunities. They come up with innovations the world has never seen before, and they put them to work. AnyVan.com saves money, time and natural resources by connecting those who want to ship something with those who transport things for a living. A simple thought… a simple online solution… a critical change in the logistics of transport, not just for London, but the UK.”

ABOUT ANYVAN.COM

Set up in October 2009, the idea for ANYVAN.com came about one and a half years earlier while Angus Elphinstone, aged just 25, was running a delivery business, White Van Gentlemen. After spotting a gap in the market for cheap nationwide deliveries and shared vans – known in the industry as part loads, he registered the url and began planning the business. 25% of vans travel empty in the UK and 50% travel half full, meaning a lot of air is transported at large cost to transport companies, wasting unnecessary fuel - it wasn't difficult to get the couriers on board with the idea, and ANYVAN.com was born.

Angus expressed delight and surprise at winning the award, "Winning the award was beyond our expectations against such tough competition! As the ANYVAN concept is such a new service our greatest challenge to date is communicating the concept and winning this award will without doubt add further credibility to the ANYVAN brand. Thank you The Good Web Guide."

THE PRIZES

As winner of The Good Web Guide Website of the Year Award 2010, ANYVAN.com will win:

* £1,000 cash to spend on the business and £500 of advertising on The Good Web Guide.
* A one-day photo shoot with Tim James from The Gray Gallery (£1,500)
* A full SEO audit and follow up consultation with SEOptimise (£750)
* A press release prepared by Kenyon Communications on the subject of their choosing with full media distribution (£500)
* Two hours free singing for 8 people at any Lucky Voice venue (£180)

THE JUDGES

ANYVAN.com was picked as winner of this year’s award after long deliberation by a panel of four judges. These included: Sophie Cornish, co-founder of NotOnTheHighStreet.com, Mark Glynne-Jones, founder of JumpTo Consultancy, JumpTo.co.uk and Jamie Murray-Wells, founder of GlassesDirect.co.uk and HearingDirect.com.

The final judge Sarah Beeny, founder of Tepilo.com and MySingleFriend.com was unable to comment on ANYVAN.com due to its partnership with Tepilo.com, but noted: “The Good Web Guide Website of the Year had some fantastic entries and there was some incredibly strong competition. It was a tough job judging the entries as so many of them got very high scores. The finalists all had some aspects which made them worthy of winning.”

HIGHLY COMMENDED

The five Highly Commended sites in this year’s award include:

* Ooh.com – “A great concept which is fun to browse and easy to use. It provides a fantastic platform to connect activities and events with people and their interests across the globe.” Sophie Cornish, NotOnTheHighStreet.com

* Made.com – “Appeals on a number of levels particularly for content and functionality. Discounted designer furniture with no compromise on quality, a fact underpinned by profiles of designers and production and nice touches when it comes to tracking orders.” Mark Glynne-Jones, JumpTo.co.uk

* Looklet.com – “Lets people define their personal style and visual identity online, connecting shoppers with their clothing designers worldwide in the process.” Doug Richard, founder of SchoolforStartups.co.uk

* TheSleepRoom.com – "A truly integrated site that makes it remarkably easy to find and buy quality beds, mattresses and bed linen." Arabella Dymoke, The Good Web Guide.

* Findababysitter.com – This user-friendy site helps parents to fulfill very specific childcare requirements without going through an agency, the idea being to save money. It is “developing a niche extremely effectively,” says Jamie Murray-Wells, founder of GlassesDirect.co.uk and HearingDirect.co.uk

THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE 2010

This year, we opened up the shortlist to our readers to let them choose the site that they thought should win. Their choice in The People's Choice Award was none other than Netmums.com! A very big congratulations to the team.

ABOUT THE AWARD

The Good Web Guide Website of the Year Award is now in its second year and aims to champion start-up web businesses. The judges decided that this year’s winning site should have been trading for at least a year and have the potential for exponential growth. AnyVan.com is an interesting concept well executed with lots of real-time information available on the site and operates in step with our times, both on the economical and green fronts. It is hoped that AnyVan.com will gain lots of mileage from winning the award.

"The Good Web Guide once again showcases how an entrepreneur’s innovation and creativity can translate into important efficiencies and new wealth for the communities they live in.” Doug Richard, founder of SchoolforStartups.co.uk.

17 November 2010