Digital Journal — This week, the world’s best websites were recognized at what is best described as the Oscars for the Internet. Winning a Webby Award is the ultimate seal of approval for any site looking to stand out among the billions of Net properties.
MySpace, the incredibly popular social networking site, was among the winners at the 10th annual Webby Awards. Next month at the awards presentation in New York City, MySpace.com founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson will receive the award for breakout of the year.
“Everyone is using [MySpace], from politicians to rock stars to students to people of all ages,” Tiffany Shlain, founder of the Webby Awards, told Associated Press.
Presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, the Webbys are known to recognize online achievements much like the Oscars honour the greatest films of the year. The Webbys are divided into 69 business and culture categories such as News, Community, Sports, Fashion, Podcasting and Consumer Electronics.
Renown Internet celebrities are also saluted at every Webby event, and this year’s recipients of Special Achievement awards are among the brightest in the business: The Gorillaz won for Artist of the Year, for fusing music with animation; Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and HDNet.com, won for Entrepreneur of the Year; Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and author of The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century, takes home Person of the Year; and Dr. Robert Kahn, co-inventor of TCP/IP protocols, wins the Lifetime Achievement Award for creating technology used to transmit information on today’s Internet.
This year’s Webbys also bestowed awards to some of today’s most popular websites, while also recognizing the smaller players joining the fray. Shlain says, “We’re proud to salute the people and organizations whose groundbreaking ideas are reshaping how we experience our world.” The Webbys are judged on content, structure and navigation, visual design, functionality, interactivity and overall experience.
But Digital Journal couldn’t help but notice several glaring omissions: YouTube, the ideal destination for free streaming video, was nowhere to be found. Some of the best written blogs — Clive Thompson’s Collision Detection and the politically minded Wonkette — weren’t even mentioned. And SmokingGun.com, one of the most interesting investigative journalism sites on the Web, should have been honoured.
But the Webbys are known to fly in the face of convention. In keeping with tradition, all winners and honourees will be limited to five-word acceptance speeches. The host for the June 12 presentation is a quirky but admirable choice: Rob Corddry of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Below are some of the winners from the 2006 Webby Awards:
- In the News category, BBC News beat out its Yankee competitors to take home the award.
- Google won in three categories — Google Earth was awarded Best Visual Design and Broadband, and Google Maps was the top site in Services.
- In Music, FabChannel won for, among other things, offering free video from live concerts.
- Many big-name sites also won Webbys, including MyYahoo! (Best Home/Welcome Page), ESPN (Sports), Expedia (Travel), Paypal (Financial Services) and Flickr (Best Navigation/Structure and Best Practices).
- Reflecting last year’s news and trends, winners also include The Katrina Help Center (Charitable Organization) and hybrid vehicle guide UCS HybridCenter (Guides)
- The Webbys also honoured the burgeoning upstarts who are making an impact on the Web. Winner include Jewish dating site JDate (Social Networking), gaming online mag Gamasutra (Games-Related), satirical powerhouse The Onion (Humour) and urban legend encyclopedia Snopes (Weird).
- International winners include the U.K.’s Official Portable PlayStation Site (Consumer Electronics), New Zealand’s travel site (Tourism) and Canada’s Big Ideas Come from Big Pencils (Best Visual Design/Aesthetic)
