Webby Awards

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About

The Webby Awards is an annual award show which recognizes content from the internet such as websites, applications, interactive advertising and online video. For each category, one winner is selected by popular vote and another is chosen by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. The ceremony is known for its short acceptance speeches, which limit winners to saying only five words.

Background

The first Webby Awards show was held in 1995 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, with the first "Site of the Year" award given to the episodic online story The Spot. In 1996, American filmmaker Tiffany Shlain was hired by The Web Magazine to launch a new version of the award show. The first year's awards ended up outperforming the magazine itself, which was subsequently closed by IDG publishers.

Notable Developments

1997

The 1997 Webby Awards were held on March 6th at Bimbo's Night Club in San Francisco, California with award winners selected by The Web Magazine.

1998

In 1998, The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences was founded by Shlain, Spencer Ante and Maya Draisin as an international organization to select nominees and winners for the Webby Awards. The 1998 Webby Awards were held on March 6th at the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts and was the first event to be broadcast live on the web in 3D.

1999

The 1999 Webby Awards were held on March 18th at Herbst Theater in San Francisco, although New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had lobbied to move the ceremony to New York City. During the event, a representative from the art website Jodi.org accepted the Webby in the "Net Art" category and addressed the audience as “Ugly commercial sons of bitches” before throwing the award.^[2]

2000

The 2000 Webby Awards were held on May 11th in the San Francisco's Masonic Center. For the first time in the event, 27 award winners received prizes of $30,000 each. According to The New York Times,^[3] one fifth of the nominees from the 2000 award ceremony had closed their businesses due to the "dot com crash."

2001

The 2001 Webby Awards were held on July 18th at the War Memorial Opera Host in San Francisco and were hosted by Scottish actor Alan Cumming. The Lifetime Achievement Award was introduced that year and was awarded engineers Ray Tomlinson and Douglas Englebart.

2002

The 2002 Webby Awards were held on June 21st at the Legion of Honor auditorium in San Francisco. The event's budget was scaled back considerably following by the dot com bubble.

2003

The 2003 Webby Awards were held on June 5th in an online ceremony due to further budget cutbacks. This year, the business category received a new award for "Best Online Business."

2004

The 2004 Webby Awards were held on May 12th with another ceremony held entirely online.

2005

The 2005 Webby Awards were the first to be held in New York City on June 8th. The ceremony was hosted by comedian Rob Corddry. The Lifetime Achievement Award was given to former United States Vice President Al Gore.

2006

The 2006 Webby Awards were held on June 12th at the Cipriani Hotel in New York City and were hosted by comedian Jon Stewart. The event marked the launch of new categories for interactive advertising and web video.

2007

The 2007 Webby Awards were held on June 3rd in New York City and were hosted a second time by comedian Rob Corddry. The event introduced a new category for mobile applications and websites and delivered Lifetime Achievement awards to musician David Bowie and YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.

2008

The 2008 Webby Awards were held on June 11th at the Citriani Restaurant event space in New York City. The Lifetime Achivement Award was given to musician David Byrne.

2009

The 2009 Webby Awards were held on June 8th in New York City and were hosted by Saturday Night Live writer Seth Meyers. Comedian Jimmy Fallon was given the year's Lifetime Achievement Award.

2010

The 2010 Webby Awards were held on June 14th in New York City and were hosted by comedian B.J. Novak. The Lifetime Achivement Award was given to Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf.

2011

The 2011 Webby Awards were held on June 13th in New York City and were hosted by actress Lisa Kudrow. The event was live streamed on Facebook, The Huffington Post and Funny or Die. The year's Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Motorola executive Martin Cooper.

2012

The 2012 Webby Awards were held on May 21st at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City and were hosted by comedian Patton Oswalt. Nyan Cat creator Chris Torres was given the Meme of the Year award by Know Your Meme founder Kenyatta Cheese and was interrupted by Blake Boston (aka Scumbag Steve) who stole the award before exiting the stage (shown below).

2013

The 2013 Webby Awards were held on May 22nd at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City and were hosted again by Patton Oswalt. The inventor of the GIF file format Steve Wilhite was given the year's Lifetime Achievement Award.

2014

The 2014 Webby Awards were held on May 19th at the Cipriani Hotel in New York City and were hosted by Patton Oswalt for the third consecutive year. Political activist and co-founder of the Creative Commons license Lawrence Lessig was given the year's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Criticism

Many of criticized the Webby Awards for requiring nominees and winners to pay a fee to be included and attend the ceremony. On May 5th, 2009, Gawker^[1] published an article titled "The Webby Awards Remain the Best Scam Going," which revealed that nominees were charged $275 per entry across 129 categories.