By Giles Hewitt
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 a 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.
Continues Below ↓
2004 has been a year of 'outrageous growth for the Internet' 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.
"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.
'Winning a Webby can make a difference' "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.
Continues...
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
