It’s that time of the year again, and last night saw the 11th annual Webby Awards in New York, as the Internetcelebrated itself Each category had a Webby winner and a People’s Voice winner, and in several instances they were the same. BBC News snagged bothNews awards, while NPR won in the Podcasts. Last FM grabbed both Music Awards. Pan’s Labyrinth was the unanimous choice for Movie of the Year, How Stuff Works took away the trophy for BestCopy/Writing, and Cute Overload won in the Weird category. There were over 100 different categories, with 8,000 entries from 60 countries. Flickr was one of the biggest winners, winning Best Practices, Best Visual Design, and both in Community. The intriguing Social Networking Award went to an outsider,Linked In. There were also several Special Achievement Awards. People of the Year went to Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, the founders of YouTube, while eBay found itself with a Webby Achievement Award. David Bowie also grabbed aLifetime Achievement Award. The Best Actor in the Films and Video area went to Ask A Ninja, and Jessica Lee Rose (Lonelygirl15) took home Best Actress. It was a night for mercifully short acceptance speeches. As they took theiraward, Hurley and Chen simply said, “YouTubers, this is for you. We never thought so many things could be blended.” Artist of the Year went to hip-hop band the Beastie Boys,for a concert video that was filmed by 50 members of the audience, which the judges hailed an a prime example of the interactive world. The band’s response was, “Are we gettingpaid for this?”
