Teenage girls used to send fanmail to their favourite bands - now they set up websites about them.

Anna Gregory and Gretel Keyte, Year 10 pupils at the Westgate School, Winchester, won a national award with their website about star band, Blue.

They found out about the "Itbeat2003" competition in J17, a lively fashion and music magazine.

Set up to encourage more girls to consider careers in the IT industry, it is run by E-skills, an IT skills body which is supported by IBM, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Science Museum.

Anna (14) built the site while Gretel (15) wrote the content. Their original and well-designed site was judged the best in the "X Box Design and Creativity" category for 13 to 15-year-olds.

"I was bored one day and started playing around on the internet and learnt how to build a site. Now I even teach my dad how to do it," said Anna.

The site had to comply with rules on copyright so, sadly, no music clips of the band were possible: 40% of the marks were given for content, 30% for creativity, 20% for technology and 10% for originality compared to the official websites.

"Ours contains games, quizzes, information and a chatty style to appeal to fans," said Gretel.

Over 250 entrants and finalists were invited to a slumber party at the Science Museum hosted by TV presenter, Kate Thornton.

"Although we had never heard of the bands who played at the party, it was great fun, noisy and extremely lively," said Anna.

"We were given a sleeping bag each and slept on the floor of a gallery used for ships."

Anna and Gretel won trophies, a Microsoft X Box each and, most precious, signed photographs of the "boys in Blue".