Ausdroid judged Best Independent Media in Optus’ IT Journalism Awards for 2014

Last Friday night, Ausdroid (well, Daniel and I) attended the Lizzies in Sydney, held at the Crystal Ballroom at Luna Park. We’ve been to the Lizzies for the last few years now, which recognise excellence in the field of technology journalism. The awards are always well attended, with the who’s who of tech press from Australia in attendance, as well as many public relations firms and their clients in attendance as well. Jason wasn’t about to join us this year, as he was in Melbourne, but we went anyway, met up with some of our friends in industry and settled in for a good meal and a few gin and tonics (thanks to Linksys for sponsoring those!)

We caught up with the guys from Tech Geek, with Geoff Quattromani, with Peter Wells from Reckoner, shared a few drinks with the guys and girls from Edelman and Red Agency (amongst others), fully in the expectation that Ausdroid probably wasn’t in contention this year. Well, it seems we were wrong.

Daniel and I were busily installing Telegram and seeing what all the fuss was about (thanks to Peter for that), when the Independent Media category was announced. I don’t think either Dan or I noticed when Ausdroid was named as a nominee — we knew we were nominated, but so little was our expectation that even the mention of our publication didn’t really grab our attention. It wasn’t until I heard the words “and the winner is Ausdroid Media” that I sort of looked at Daniel in disbelief, and we stumbled our way up onto the stage, complete with silly grins and a fair helping of disbelief.

After the initial shock had died down, Dan and I reflected on what we achieved in 2014, and what we’ve already achieved in 2015. This year has been out of the ballpark for us, and we wouldn’t have done any of it if it weren’t for you guys reading and commenting away on our articles, news and reviews. You see, we just do this for fun.. but in 2015, Ausdroid is starting to look like a real news publication. We’ve been around the world; MWC 2015 in Barcelona, a Huawei launch in London, LG’s G4 launch in Singapore, and Dan is about to jump on a plane to San Francisco to attend Google I/O as one of only two journalists from Australia.

I think I speak for all of us behind Ausdroid when I say I’m incredibly proud, honoured and humbled by having won this award. Yes, it’s just a piece of paper and a nice glass trophy, and in the scheme of things, it might not be much. However, in an industry where there really isn’t much by way of recognition, where the work really can be thankless, and where the rewards are few and far between, it’s really nice to be recognised by our peers as the best at what we do.

We’re not finished for this year either. We’re increasing our focus on app and game review (for those who haven’t welcomed Allan Curtis aboard yet, please do), doing more in-depth reviews than ever before, and doing our best to keep bringing you the news, reviews and more that we know you mostly enjoy reading.

A big thanks from all of us to all of you.