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Topical site of the week: www.pushthebutton.co.nz
This concept is very clever. The retired HMNZS Wellington is being sunk off the south coast of Wellington to create an artificial marine reef and dive spot. You can be the one (with three of your mates) who pushes the button by subscribing to a mobile version of Battleships, whereby you locate virtual battleships by using the keypad of your mobile phone. Miss a battleship and you're out of the game. There will be as many rounds of the game as it takes till there's a winner, as well as wild card chances too. And there are lots of great prizes up for grabs along the way. Great convergence of mobile, web and text. And now a little TV too.

Theme: Weddings

I have to be honest and say why oh why did I pick this theme. I've spent literally hours up to my virtual neck in frothy, lacy, rosy, twinkly, cringey, websites on all things wedding in New Zealand and for the most part, they are bad. I'm so disappointed. What I had hoped for was some great little portals, nicely designed, that grouped together all the things you need to know about, plan for and do if you are having a wedding in this country. What do I find but a fragmented list of poorly designed, atrociously constructed and seriously out of date sites that for the most part, think that anyone with a wedding on their mind is a fool that must have their money quickly parted. I even went to seven google pages of listings (searching under weddings nz) and still had only found a couple that were okay. Most were appealing to the international couple looking to get hitched down under.

So I'm laying down the challenge. There could be few more qualified prospects in any market than engaged couples, so why not give these people quality online experiences with some professional application to the websites.

Take some tips from this site www.weddings.co.nz - one of the few useful, populated and up to date sites for NZ. Some good features such as dresses for sale http://www.weddings.co.nz/dresses/dresses/size12-1.htm and real stories from NZ couples http://www.weddings.co.nz/features/toc-real-weddings.htm It's a little Auckland-biased but it's definitely one of the best.

Another New Zealand Site is www.nzweddingplanner.co.nz , ranked New Zealand's number one wedding website by Hitwise.co.nz   The Site contains
1. Discussion Forum with over 2000 forum members and over 134924  posts, answers to posts in normally less than 15 mins http://www.nzweddingplanner.co.nz/asp/discussion/forum.asp
2. Wedding Diaries (updated monthly) http://www.nzweddingplanner.co.nz/claire/index.htm
3. Online Wedding Magazine, with 5 new articles updated monthly (over 110 articles online) http://www.nzweddingplanner.co.nz/bridal_tips.htm
4. Wedding Software http://www.nzweddingplanner.co.nz/planner/software.htm
5. Planning Tips http://www.nzweddingplanner.co.nz/wedding_planner.htm
6. Active Chatroom
7. Bridal Club (currently over 3000 engaged kiwis are members) http://www.nzweddingplanner.co.nz/bridal_club.htm
8. Brides can create their own free wedding web page http://www.nzweddingplanner.co.nz/asp/myWedding/search.asp
 
For a great portal bringing together the plethora of wedding associated sites from around the world check out www.topweddingquestions.com It's one big forum where there are questions and answers to all things wedding. Some great heartfelt spite in there - what to do with unwanted guests, how to tell your sister not to bring her bratty kids, where to place the nasty stepmother/father/sister, how to stop the mother-in-law insisting you were a veil when you want to wear a hat and so on. It's quite addictive reading all the forums, particularly the juicy, venomous ones.

Now a site I really think could be emulated here in NZ is www.weddingsonline.ie - an Irish site with really everything on it you can think of. Including Papal Blessings.

A viewer emailed me and said I should check out her brother-in-law's wedding website in the UK. Well I did and I think it's brilliant. Go and see www.perfecttableplan.com - no more sticky notes or slips of paper when trying to organise your seating plan. http://www.perfecttableplan.com/html/screenshot__1.html Store all your guest information like who they should and shouldn't sit with, special food requirements, budget etc then drag and drop your guest around the seating plan. Then print it all out for table name settings, table numbers for outside the venue and so on. This is the internet at its best - a really useful application that can be used anywhere, pay online and well targeted at people planning seating a large group for any kind of event, particularly weddings. Thanks for sending that in.

Fun site of the week has to be www.dreammatches.com - only beautiful people can post their pictures here for online dating. I'm still waiting for my photo to be approved.

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