SOMERVILLE, MA - RDVO, one of New England’s fastest growing interactive media and user experience design firms, today announced that it has been awarded Outstanding Achievement in Website Development by the Interactive Media Awards for its work on the Gillette Young Guns Website. The honor recognizes that the project met and surpassed the basic standards of excellence that comprise the web’s most professional work. The site was honored specifically for excellence in Celebrity/Fan.

The judging consisted of various criteria, including design, usability, innovation in technical features, standards compliance and content. In order to win this award level, the site had to meet strict guidelines in each area, an achievement only a fraction of sites in the IMA competition earn each quarter.

Benjamin Zipkin, Director of RDVO, said, “It’s an honor to have our work recognized by the Interactive Media Awards. We feel strongly that our projects are world-class examples of how the Internet can be used to enhance a company’s message and branding. This accolade is further proof of this fact.”

About RDVO
Founded in 2000, RDVO has grown into one of the top user experience design agencies in the Northeast. Offering a full suite of research, strategy, and implementation services, we have provided innovative solutions for clients including Microsoft, Gillette, Hewlett-Packard, Eastman Kodak, Monster.com, the Boston Red Sox, and Fidelity Investments. Our work is defined by our user-focused design methodology and our demonstrated ability to collaborate with clients to surpass project expectations.

We found out today that our work on the Gillette Young Guns website is an official 2008 Webby Award Honoree in the Celebrity/Fan category.

The Webby is one of the most prestigious interactive and website awards and we’re pleased to be honored for the second year in a row (we won last year for the MBTA.com website).

Hailed as the “Oscars of the Internet” by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including Websites, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video, and Mobile Websites. The awards are judged by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, a global organization that includes David Bowie, Harvey Weinstein, Arianna Huffington, AKQA Global Creative Director Rei Inamoto, Matt Groening, Jamie Oliver, Internet inventor Vinton Cerf, and RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser.

Congratulations and thanks are mostly due to our amazing clients at the Gillette who consistently challenge us and collaborate to create amazing web products!

RDVO was recently invited to take place in Microsoft’s Phizzpop design challenge. The challenge is held in several cities including Boston, San Francisco, Austin, and New York. The invite-only event event includes a design contest where top agencies are asked to solve a complex design solution using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) — Microsoft’s new supercharged application platform.

Several RDVO team members will receive intensive WPF team training after which they’ll have only two days to define, design, and build a working application UI using WPF. The winning company in Boston gets a bunch of free gear and a free trip to South By Southwest.

We are pleased and proud to take advantage of opportunity. More information about the program can be found here.

RDVO was honored with three 2007 MITX Awards last night — the most by any agency at this year’s event:

• Gillette Young Guns - Best Entertainment/Sports Website
• MBTA.com - Best Government Website
• PHT Corporation - Best Technology Website

The MITX Awards is the largest and most prestigious awards competition in the country for interactive and web innovations and celebrates the best creative and technological accomplishments emerging from New England. Over one thousand creative and technology professionals attended last night’s event.

As always, we share these awards with our awesome clients whose vision, innovation, and spirit truly drives the creation of amazing products!

We just found out that three of our projects have been named as finalists for the 2007 MITX Awards.

• MBTA.com - Goverment Category
• GilletteYoungGuns.com - Sports and Entertainment
• PHTcorporation.com - Technology

Awards are handed out in early Novembers. As always, we thank our clients for the opportunity to work on these great projects.

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So where do I start? The last month has been crazy. We accepted our first Webby Award, won a bunch of new gigs, brought on a few new people, and continue to churn out great work.

We accept this award for the people of Boston…
We had a great time at the Webbys accepting the award for mbta.com. Mike D conceived and delivered the best five-word acceptance speech ever given for a Transit website: “Fewer Boston Drivers…your welcome!”

Can you find RDVO on the red carpet?

Mike accepts the award for mbta.com. The five-word speech: “Fewer Boston drivers…you’re welcome”

The after-party was even more fun than the show. DJ Jazzy Jeff dee-jayed the night away where Ben was the subject of one more five-word speech: “Most tragic dance moves…ever.”

New Projects
We’re pleased to announce several great new projects. We’re now working on the user experience for the new trip planner for 511.org, a roll-up of San Francisco transit organizations. We’re also working on the redesign for Carbonite, a online backup provider, and are working with online community provider Communispace on planning out their new online marketing platform.

We also have a couple of new engagements working on product UI that we’ll be announcing soon.

More coming soon…

Can you believe it? We learned earlier this week that a site that RDVO planned, designed, and delivered — MBTA.com — won the 2007 Webby Award in the Government category.

We were definitely surprised to beat out some great sites including the Library of Congress and Factcheck.com.

According to the Webby team, there were over 8,000 works entered from all 50 US states and over 60 countries worldwide, which makes the 2007 awards the biggest in their history. The Webbies are considered by many to be the “Oscars of the Internet” and we’re extremely pleased, excited, and humbled to be among the winners.

Most importantly, we want to acknowledge our amazing client counterparts at the MBTA who–from day one–brought a special blend of competency, hard work, vision, and fairness to the table.
See you at the award show in June!

The 11^th Annual Webby Award finalists were announced this morning and RDVO is pleased to announce that mbta.com is a nominee in the “Government” category. The award show is New York City on June 5.

The Webby Awards are considered to be the “Oscars” of the nominated, so we’re all extremely excited to be nominated. The MBTA website has been very well received by both its users and the web design and development community at large. In addition to the Webby Nomination, the site was a finalist at the SXSW Interactive awards and was also a Commarts Site of the Week.

Congrats to our team and client counterparts at the MBTA!