Proving sadly that their pockets aren't as big as many of their egos, the glittering array of attendees at the Web Ireland awards last Friday night refused to cough up more than the price that several charity auction items were valued at, and in some cases coughed up a lot less.

While some complained that they weren't told in advance that there would be an auction to benefit the Simon Community's good work - and therefore didn't have authorisation to cut a cheque - somehow such auctions don't seem to have problems drawing, er, more charitable bids from other sectors of the tech industry. Or maybe the first-round venture capital funding is running so low these days that many companies can't manage a reasonable donation to a good cause, for which they get to take home an item of value as well.

The Margin would respectfully like to remind new media folks that at the similar Golden Spider awards in September, Baltimore Technologies paid £5,000 for a pair of tickets to Bob Dylan's Vicar Street concert - then kindly handed them over to Pat Kenny, to let him auction them again for charity on the air.