Internet geeks' big night out
2005-06-08 11:12
New York - Al Gore may have lost the White House, but at least he won a Webby.
Scant consolation, perhaps, for a failed presidential candidate, but a proud achievement for the other victors who took the stage at the Ninth Annual Webby Awards in New York City's Gotham Hall on Monday night.
It was comeback year for the self-proclaimed Oscars of the internet - or "gongs for geeks" as one humble winner put it -which had been forced to roll up its red carpet after the global dot.com bust that relegated a host of past honorees to the cyber wilderness.
After online-only ceremonies in 2003 and 2004, the Webby Awards for internet excellence re-emerged from the virtual world to honour creative websites offering everything from employment opportunities for spies to surreal songs by guitar-playing kittens.
"It was like the Dark Ages back there for a while, but we've come out the other side," said Tiffany Shlain, the awards' founder and creative director.
Bigger and better
"The past year has been one of outrageous growth for the internet, and it's not only become bigger, but better ... more substantial and more mature," Shlain said.
Monday's ceremony offered awards in 65 categories - more than double last year's number - after receiving entries from more than 4 000 websites in 40 countries.
There were so many nominees that the organisers decided to announce the winners a month in advance of the awards event in an effort to restrict attendance.
"I know it's a cliche, but we can honestly say there are no losers here tonight," declared the host for the evening, comedian Rob Corddry. "Because they weren't invited."
While the Webbys may lack the glamour of the Oscars, they offer the quirky advantage of strictly limiting acceptance speeches to just five words, thus prohibiting gushingly tearful testimonials of gratitude to family and agents.
"I hate acceptance speeches," said Shlain. "They always make you cringe. This way, it's a challenge to be more creative."
Results ranged from the strangely banal ("Look at my hair man") to snippets of Yoda-like philosophy ("Politics good. Sex better ... much.")
Some surprises
Some managed a dig at their competitors. A representative from flightmaker.com, which won the travel category, played charades with the audience to elicit the five-word put down: "Eat your heart out Orbitz."
The food and beverage award was won by the website of the Californian nut company Emerald, but it was SoBe Beverages, winner of a consolation "people's voice" Webby in the same category, that had the last word.
"Emerald nuts ... give me diarrhoea," the sober-faced SoBe recipient announced.
"New Zealand: More than Hobbits," was the offering from newzealand.com which won a tourism prize, while apartments.com had an equally wry response to victory in the real estate category with: "Live the American dream. Rent."
The ceremony testified to the diversity of the internet, with awards for social activism, religion and spirituality, sports, politics and consumer electronics.
And the categories threw up some surprises with the employment Webby going to the recruiting website of the Central Intelligence Agency.
"Winning a Webby can make a difference," said Joel Veitch, 31, whose rathergood.com swept both the humour and weird categories with its animated singing cats.
"It doesn't mean an explosion in the site's popularity, but it confers status in the web community and helps with commissions, which is how I make a living," Veitch said.
Webby winners are chosen by the grandly titled International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which claims a membership that includes David Bowie, Francis Ford Coppola and The Simpsons creator Matt Groening.
Gore, who was pilloried during the 2000 presidential campaign for appearing to imply that he had created the internet, won a lifetime achievement award for providing crucial political support to the technical development of the World Wide Web.
Clasping his Webby, even Gore adhered to the five-word limit.
"Please, don't recount this vote," he said.
On the net:
www.webbyawards.com