This week is the last chance to vote for your favourite Brighton and Hove web site in an annual online competition.

The 2002 Brighton and Hove web awards were launched at the Virtual Festival in May.

About 70 sites have been nominated in four categories: Community and education, business, personal and best Sussex CommuniGate self-built community, web site.

Voting, which takes place online, closes at midnight on Sunday.

Last year's web awards attracted more than 500 votes.

The winners ranged from the Brighton Racecourse site to Shark-bait, a web page for surfers, with The Brighton Curry Guide and Insight Magazine also among the winners.

Mark Walker, who organises the festival, said: "The level of interest has been about the same as last year but we are expecting a further surge of interest in the last week. We have sent more than 1,000 email reminders in the past week to prompt people."

He was particularly pleased by the public's continuing support for the awards, which were introduced at last year's festival.

Mr Walker said: "There was a lot of interest last year because the awards were new and this sort of thing hadn't been tried before so there was a strong novelty factor.

"We were a bit concerned not as many people would nominate sites but people have nominated more sites this year, even if it's their own site.

"People are just as interested in attracting publicity for their sites this time around. They see a real advantage in winning an award."

Besides the publicity, the winners will receive a book from computer book specialists O'Reilly Books and a certificate to prove they are among the cream of the city's web sites.

Nominations so far range from the Brighton and Hove City Council site to the online home of the Brighton and Hove Chinese Society. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony later in the summer. This year's web awards are being supported by thisisbrightonandhove.co.uk and O'Reilly Books.

The annual virtual festival was launched by the Sussex Community Internet Project to demonstrate how new technology was being used by people in the city.

www.virtualfestival.org.uk
www.scip.org.uk