12. Webbys salute best of the Web
By Mark Alberstat
THE OSCARS, the Junos, the Emmys and a dozen other award shows clutter our
TV viewing each year with endless hours of congratulations and thank-yous.
One award that you never hear about but should be of great interest to
readers of this column, is the Webby, a yearly award given out in June to
a variety of Web sites that are judged the best and brightest in a variety
of fields.
As always, an interesting crop of sites showed up on this year's list of
nominees and winners, helping to underline the diversity of the Internet.
The Webby Award nominees and winners are selected by the Academy (tongue
firmly in cheek here) from sites that have been submitted to the contest.
The sites are then judged against six criteria and undergo a six-month,
three-tiered judging process to win the coveted award.
The voting is overseen by PriceWaterhouse to insure everything is above
board.
The 30 categories run the gamut from activism, community, politics and
spiritualism, showing the diversity of the Webby Awards and the Internet
itself.
A Canadian site that won this year was CBC's Radio 3. The site, which won in
the broadband category, is best viewed if you are on a fast link to the
Internet.
This site is an eclectic mix of music and pop culture. It has a hip artsy
look to it with a photo gallery, new music and a complete archive of
features you may have missed.
The site is so popular that not only did the judges like it, it was also a
People's Voice award winner.
Another winner of both the judges hearts and the People's Voice is the Lonely Planet site, which won
in the travel category.
With such services as an online travel advisory, a detailed travel forum
that is useful for the veteran and novice traveller, and an easy-to-use
Lonely Planet book and accessory shop, this site is what the Webbys are
all about.
For those with a little time on their hands, the games category had some
fun sites that are certainly worth a visit, but keep half an eye on the
clock or your time online could reach the level of a Webby judge.
Under the category of community, LiveJournal was a nominee. This
site is a blogging site and is quickly growing in popularity. It was beat
out for the award, however, by Meetup.com, a site that allows you to
meet other locals on the Web and, for a change in this wired world, meet
them face to face.
There is even an active group for Halifax that has more than 100 members.
A few of the sites one would expect to be winners were there as well. PayPal was the winner under finance,
while Google and BBCNews found their awards under the
news category, along with eBay under
services.
With a good set of archives and fully and nicely linked list of nominees
and winners, the Web site for the Webbys - www.webbyawards.com - could easily
be used as a portal to the best of the Web and a good place to start for
your next online adventure.
The Mousepad runs every two weeks. It's a service of Chebucto Community
Net, a community-owned Internet provider. If you have a question about
computing, e-mail mousepad@chebucto.ns.ca. If we use your question in
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Originally published 6 July 2003
