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Webby Awards Celebrate a Night of Geek Chic

Webcast fete honors pairs of winners, picked by experts and Netizens.

By PC World staff   

The annual event is an ego-booster in the spirit of the Academy Awards, but with some twists. For example, Webby Award winners are restricted to five-word acceptance speeches when they receive their spiral silver statuettes. Dress code was "spiffy," and at the official after-party, attendees entered through a "spiffy detector" alarm that buzzed those dressed too conservatively. Spiffy-challenged individuals were swathed in feather boas so as to make a more dramatic entrance into the soiree.

Celebrants were an eclectic mix of computer geeks, media, and San Francisco celebrities and officials who have collectively dubbed themselves the "digerati."

But geek chic ruled: Chinese food, a coder favorite, was served; and one of the color-coded party rooms contained Intel PIII-powered PCs where attendees could check out the winning sites or watch the Webcast. Bartenders wore ties emblazoned with rows of 0s and 1s and cigarette girls straight from the 1940s added to the overall tech-meets-retro vibe.

The awards recognized a breadth of interests, including nonprofit, governmental, and educational organizations as well as commercial sites.

Reflecting the spirit of the Web, the contest also had two tiers of winners: those chosen by an official panel of judges, and those garnering the most votes from Web surfers who cast ballots on the Webby Awards Web site. Occasionally, the two agreed. The event was Webcast live, of course.

Celebrity judges for the 1999 Webby Awards included David Bowie for Music, Francis Ford Coppola for Film, Esther Dyson for Finance, and Dilbert creator Scott Adams for Humor.

And here are the names that came out of the envelopes:

Weird
Webby Award: Superbad.com
People's Choice: Absurd.org

TV
Both awards: PBS Online

Travel
Webby: Biztravel.com
People: Travelocity.com

Technical Achievement
Webby: Amazon.com
People: My.yahoo.com

Sports
Webby: SportsPages
People: The Sporting News

Science
Webby: Exploratorium
People: NASA Space Science Laboratory

Radio
Webby: Freespeech Internet Television
People: Spinner

Print & Zines
Webby: Salon Magazine
People: Smithsonian Magazine

Politics & Law
Webby: California Voter Foundation
People: The Freedom Forum Online

News
Both: CNN Interactive

Music
Webby: SonicNet
People: MP3

Living
Webby: BabyCenter
People: Epicurious

Humor
Both: The Onion

Health
Webby: InteliHealth
People: Mayo Clinic Health Oasis

Games
Webby: Gamers Central
People: ShockRave

Finance
Both: The Motley Fool

Film
Both: Internet Movie Database

Fashion
Webby: PaperMag
People: London Fashion Week

Education
Webby: Journey North
People: Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

Community
Webby: Senior Net
People: iVillage.com

Commerce
Webby: Amazon.com
People: Ebay

Arts
Webby: jodi.org
People: Doors of Perception

Arin Hailey and Matthew Newton contributed to this report.