They're often billed as the Oscars for the internet and the winners for this year, the 12th annual Webby Awards, have just been unveiled.
“It started off, obviously, just honoring websites for about nine or ten years. That was what most people were using online, but today it's expanded from websites to interactive advertising, online video, which is videos that can be created to be premiered on the internet and the mobile web as well,” said David-Michel Davies of the Webby Awards. “It's presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which is an organization of about 600 people.”
There are awards given in more than 100 categories and actually two for each category – one is the People's Voice Award, selected by anyone who wants to go online and vote, and the second is the Webby Award, chosen by a large panel of experts and luminaries. Winning sites are primarily chosen first based on their content and then on the experience they offer.
“There are about 500 judges, everybody from like David Bowie in music to Richard Branson in travel all the way to Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, the inventors of the internet. So it's a great mix of traditional media people and internet people,” says Davies. “We got about 10,000 entries this year from 60 countries and all 50 states, so it's really becoming very international.”
They're often billed as the Oscars for the internet and the winners for this year, the 12th annual Webby Awards, have just been unveiled. Adam Balkin has more.
While taking home a trophy is nice, some winners say it's not really a cut-throat kind of competition, since many of the nominees in any one category usually link to one another on each other's websites. So, as corny as it sounds, anything to bring attention to all the nominees makes them all winners.
“The thing with the web is that there's unlimited inventory, so it's not like you're going to buy my paper and not someone else's paper,” says Danny Shea of HuffingtonPost.com. “I'm going to link to your stories and you're going to link to mine, so it is an actual democratization, community effort, collaborative kind of thing.”
“The Onion is extremely pandering it's all about awards and winning, so we're thrilled to have racked up a couple more awards this year,” said Carol Kolb of TheOnion.com. “Ultimately, we want to be the only website left on the web. We want to crush everyone else, but it's good to have a little competition for the meantime.”
The official Webby Award Ceremonies take place this year June 9th and 10th. Possibly the best thing about the celebration are the acceptance speeches capped at just five words apiece.