‘Digerati’ Celebrate At the Webby Awards

SAN FRANCISCO—Sagging spirits over flailing dot-coms were nowhere to be seen at the 5th Annual Webby Awards, as over 3,000 attendees celebrated the “best of the web” Wednesday night.

Held in San Francisco’s majestic War Memorial Opera House, the awards ceremony, dubbed the “Oscars” of the Internet, was hosted by Tony Award-winning actor Alan Cumming.

Once guests crossed the red carpet into the Opera House, they were greeted by garlands of sunflowers and elaborate displays from the various sponsors. On one end of the room, nominees could even kneel before a displayed Webby award and “pray” for victory.

Entertaining the audience with his dry wit, the star of “The Anniversary Party” kept the show moving at a characteristically brisk pace, chastising winners whose speeches exceeded the five word limit.

Founded by Tiffany Shlain in 1996, the Webby Awards are the leading honors for achievement in technology and creativity on the web.

Shlain, who was also the show’s director, began the show by praising audience members on their tenacity in the face of difficult times facing Internet businesses.

“We’ve all had a painful year,” she said. “But challenging times push people to be the more creative.” Comparing the experience of starting a website to a “tempestuous love affair,” she stressed both the evolutionary and revolutionary qualities of the web.

Playing to the evening’s survival theme, attendees were instructed to wear their “gutsiest” attire. Many took this as an open invitation to parade their most colorful outfits, whether by simply adding a blue feather boa to a classic black dress, or by squeezing into a red tutu and donning fairy wings. Event volunteers tried to engage the more conservatively dressed into the festivities by passing out bindis and spraying guests’ hair with glitter.

For the most part, presenters and winners made light of the current economic downturn. As the speaker for Print & Zine Webby winner Plastic.com joked in his five-word acceptance speech, “Bankruptcy never felt so good.”

The night’s biggest winner was VolunteerMatch, which won the Webby for both the best activism site, and for best services.

Other winners included local favorite community bulletin board site Craig’s List for community, the popular search engine Google.com for “best practices,” Inside.com for best news site, satirical newsletter The Onion for best humor site, and Peter Pan’s Home Page for best Weird site.

Swell.com, the winners for best sports site, even recognized pre-show commentator and ABC News anchor Sam Donaldson in their acceptance speech, recognizing “Sam Donaldson, dude, gnarly toupe.”

This year’s telecast also featured the first-ever Webby Lifetime Achievement Award, which was presented to Ray Tomlinson and Douglas Engelbart, two of the pioneers in the development of the modern computer experience. Tomlinson is credited with inventing e-mail, Engelbart with the mouse. Andy Grove, the CEO of Intel, presented the duo their awards.

After the ceremony, the Opera House was converted into a multi-level fun house as attendees were invited to indulge in an elaborate post-party. Each of the building’s four floors was filled with refreshments, as well as Webby “bytes,” food samples from a number of the aree’s best restaurants.

The Webby awards are picked and presented by members of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, a 350-person organization whose eclectic members include popular figures from business, entertainment, and politics.

—Staff writer Michelle F. Kung can be reached at mkung@fas.harvard.edu.