I'd Really Like To Thank... Boohoo....Whine...Sniff...Wail...Sob...

June 6, 2003 9:51 AM

The Winners of This Year's Webby Awards.
posted by Blue Stone (17 comments total)

I don't really give a rat's ass about the Webbies one way or the opther, but I was pleased to see that Cockeye beat The Cheater.
posted by Shadowkeeper at 9:59 AM on June 6, 2003

"Thank God for little kittens"
posted by Blue Stone at 9:59 AM on June 6, 2003

OK, everyone, all at once, declare your disdain for the irrelevant Webby Awards...and then discuss the winners.
posted by ghastlyfop at 10:23 AM on June 6, 2003

Okay ... MEETUP won? That thing actually works?!
posted by WolfDaddy at 10:34 AM on June 6, 2003

You mean at some point in time, the Webby's were actually relevant?
posted by mkelley at 10:59 AM on June 6, 2003

Good to see Penny Arcade win People's Voice for Net Art. Congrats, guys -- keep up the good work.
posted by toothgnip at 11:38 AM on June 6, 2003

"You mean at some point in time, the Webby's were actually relevant?"

Exactly. Each year I'm never in awe of the fantastic design from the sites of the award winners. This year is no exception. Amazon.com won- Whoo hoo.
posted by pbeyer at 12:03 PM on June 6, 2003

We may need an update to the guidelines to include:

Extremely well-known sites that are easy to find but are so devoid of surprise and imagination that most people have stopped bothering to go and look and therefore might have missed the fact that they were recently updated.

</snark>
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:16 PM on June 6, 2003

"Awards! They do nothing but give out awards! I can't believe it. Greatest fascist dictator, Adolf Hitler!"

-- Alvy Singer (Woody Allen), "Annie Hall"
posted by chuq at 12:53 PM on June 6, 2003

"Aaaand the winner for 'Self Proclaimed Authority' goes to..."
posted by scarabic at 4:07 PM on June 6, 2003

I think the fact that Penny Arcade won the People's Choice net art category underlines just how little people know about net art. Either that, or... don't underestimate the voting potential of a bunch of gaming geeks. Either or.

Don't get me wrong, I really like PA, but that's not the category for it. Overall, the categories are way too general to account for the variety of the web... hence, the Webbies are even more irrelevant.

And I guess that since they are poor now and can't host an actual event, that they don't bother with the five(?) word speech routine anymore?
posted by mkn at 6:08 PM on June 6, 2003

Once again I'm completely shunned by the webbys. I'm totally unappreciated in my time. I'm sure after I die people will flock to my website and lavish me with posthumous awards and ...aww crap. The LSD just wore off. As you were.
posted by ZachsMind at 8:01 PM on June 6, 2003

The five word speeches were still a part of it. Although I was surprised to read that "more than 200 votes were cast online for People's choice awards" -- I'm hoping that's some kind of typo.
posted by bclark at 5:40 AM on June 7, 2003

MKN:
I think the fact that Penny Arcade won the People's Choice net art category underlines just how little people know about net art. Either that, or... don't underestimate the voting potential of a bunch of gaming geeks. Either or.

Gabe was really pushing for votes. Guess people were listening to him. I imagine something similar happened here.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 6:36 AM on June 7, 2003

I've always thought it pretty amazing that whoever they named the awards for was named "Webby". Because y'know they're awards for Web achievement, and "Webby" actually starts with the word "Web", which is a really impressive coincidence when you think about it.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:03 AM on June 7, 2003

Here is what happens with Amazon.com winning the people's voice award.

You have to log in to begin voting, and when you do, you are invited to vote for one in each of 30 categories.

You can easily see the five nominees, for instance in Commerce, you see:

Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com
Art.com http://www.art.com
Fresh Direct http://www.freshdirect.com
RedEnvelope http://www.redenvelope.com
The Tire Rack http://www.tirerack.com

But you can only see the results of the voting after you have voted. So people are tempted to vote for something, and there is no way you are going to check out tirerack.com unless you are really SUPER bored.

People tended to vote for what they know, so a lot of people just clicked Amazon.com, because they at least recognized the name, just to peep at the results.

Who is going to educate themselves about 150 sites in 30 categories just to vote? Not many.

I am happy to be a winner though! Whoo! Cockeyed! Thanks to the ~1200 who voted for cockeyed!

-Rob
posted by cockeyed at 1:01 PM on June 7, 2003

I am happy to be a winner though! Whoo! Cockeyed! Thanks to the ~1200 who voted for cockeyed!

Hey, gratz, Rob -- I was just teasing Tim Storm that his bandwidth expense was going to go up because of you. indieWIRE surprisingly one one this year as well.
posted by bclark at 6:14 PM on June 7, 2003