The Virtual Woman: A Woman's
Weekly Guide To Cyberspace
Movies Do It. Music Does It. Now the Web Does It Too.
We've got the Oscars. We've got the Grammys. We've got the Emmys and, heck we've even got The Clio Awards for advertising. And, now, for those who don't know, the Web has its own version, The Webby Awards, a real life, real world, in the flesh, face-to-face celebration of the best of the Web. And the biggest get together of Web geeks, er, industry luminaries, going. Of course I'll be there on March 18th. How could I not? The Virtual Woman is a judge!The Webbies started out in 1996, the brainchild of Tiffany Shlain, an independent film producer cum web designer (web design paid the bills, film did not). At the time the now defunct Web Magazine was having Shlain put together a website for The Webby Awards. Unclear on what exactly they wanted to do and hearing about her background in film production they asked Shlain to try and "do something" with this "Webby thing." Shlain couldn't resist and she produced the first Webby Awards ceremony in a small night club venue in San Francisco. Several hundred people attended. It was nice. It was relatively low key. But it was only 1997. The Web was young as were The Webbies and both were destined to grow. Dramatically.
Fast forward to 1998. The Webbies take off, become the most coveted award online and leave all other web award wanna-be's (there were more than a handful in 1996) languishing in cyberspace. Two thousand people (invitation-only) attend the awards that year. The Webbies also grow to be so popular that Shlain finds herself in a geographical tug of war between New York City's Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and San Francisco's Mayor Willie Brown about where the 1999 awards should be hosted. The choice is not only economic but is also symbolic one: which coast is really the home of the Web-Silicon Valley or, New York's version, Silicon Alley. Forced to choose between New York City's Radio City Music Hall or San Francisco's Herbst Theater as The Webby's next venue, Shlain finally chose San Francisco. But when asked to elaborate on why, Shlain will only venture, "It's a choice we made for this year." Hmmm....
1998 was my first Webby Awards-a geek meets glam montage as traditional heavyweights like CBS (winning in the sports category-- http://www.sportsline.com) and strangeweights like Bert Is Evil (winning in the Weird category-- (http://www.fractalcow.com/bert) each accepted their Webby awards. I expect this year's show to be no different. Only about 50 percent bigger. And while the idea of the Webbies is exactly the same as any of the major awards shows, to honor the best this medium has to offer, it differs hugely in one way: thanks to Shlain's firm control over the event, it is run like clockwork and slam-dunk over with in one hour and 15 minutes. Acceptance speeches are limited to five words. The Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com) did the best job last year with their acceptance speech: You ain't seen nothin' yet.
The way it works: First, a set of nominating judges, chosen for their web and internet expertise, spend months combing the web for worthy sites in their assigned categories. Judges debate and discuss their nominations with one another to end up with a short list of sites that will then go on to be judged by The Academy. The Academy is a group chosen for their expertise in specialized fields. For instance, David Bowie is a Music Category judge. Gillian Anderson will be a judge in the Weird Category. It is the The Academy that ultimately chooses which sites will receive a Webby. Unlike the other awards programs, The Webbies does not hide their list of nominating or final judges-in fact, The Webby Awards is proud of their list, spending years to come up with the most discriminating and knowledgeable group to choose the winners.
Put it all together, the months of choosing judges and then the months and months choosing sites and you've got a short list of sites and even a shorter list of winners that make up the Web's Ultimate Bookmark: The Webby Awards. You can find the site, all of the current contenders as well as previous nominees and winners at http://www.webbyawards.com.
Happy Surfing!
Find these links and more at WWWomen.Com (http://www.wwwomen.com) the web's largest search directory of topics for women online. Email the Virtual Woman with your Internet questions or send snailmail to: WWWomen.Com, Attn: Virtual Woman, 3701 Geary Blvd., #325, S.F., CA 94118. Copyright, 1998. WWWomen, Inc. All rights reserved.
This column can only be re-distributed with written
permission by
Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service or WWWomen, Inc.
© Copyright 1996-99. WWWomen, Inc.®. All Rights Reserved.
WWWomen is a registered trademark of the WWWomen company.