Wellington, June 3 NZPA - The Mint Chicks have taken out the top prize at the MySpace Choice Awards, voted the favourite act of New Zealand users of the social networking website.

The experimental rock band won both the indie music category and the overall MySpace Choice Award, and received an advertising banner package worth $5000 and an editorial promotion package on MySpace's New Zealand and Australian sites.

Standup comedian and Flight of the Conchords actor Rhys Darby won the comedy category of the awards, while OpShop won the rock section and Gin Wigmore won the pop category.

Drum and bass act Shapeshifter won the roots awards, singer J Williams won the hip hop/RnB category and Kidz In Space took out the electronic/dance award.

Unsigned Christchurch act Dukes, who formed in 2003, won the up and coming category, while the "your choice" award went to Dunedin alternative band Left Or Right.

The awards celebrated a "diverse" range of signed and unsigned acts, MySpace New Zealand marketing manager Julie Warmington said.

The awards were a way to support local talent, along with the site being a platform for New Zealanders to share and discover new music, she said.

Around 2500 votes were cast by New Zealand MySpace users in the awards.

More than 30,000 New Zealand artists had pages on the site, which had nearly 125 million active users around the world.