Whew! Quite the evening at the 12th Annual Webby Awards. Over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the Big Apple and everyone in their finest attire. NPG staff mingled with well over 1,000 attendees at this gala event at the famous Cipriani Wall Street.
The awards event was kicked off by David-Michel Davies, Executive Director for The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. The MC for the event was none other than the incredibly funny Seth Myers - head writer of SNL and co-anchor of Weekend Update. Great material with impeccable delivery. "If you don't know me, that's because I work on something you might not know: television." "We are here tonight to honor the 2% of the Internet that is not dedicated to pornography." He likened his current success on TV to the equivalent of being a dinosaur groomer. "Thanks a lot Internet."
Over 200 webby awards were handed out. Each recipient only saying five words max as their acceptance speech. Lots of Obama references, quite a number of Slinky jokes (after all the Webby is a dressed-up Slinky), and lots of acceptance speeches by TED and NY Times. The NYT won eight awards including best online newspaper.
Yours truly went up to accept the award for Nature.com. We won for Best in Science in the Society cluster. Sites that empower and educate people, facilitate civic participation and enable learned pursuits. Our ditty "Nature - the natural selection" was met with polite applause for cleverness. OK, it was not the best one of the night but my President Obama lines were all pretty well taken by previous winners (see Arianna Huffington below) but it was more thoughtful than many such as "Thank you very much, really" and "This thing smells like butt."
Highlights of the evening were:
* Onion on World of World of Warcraft
* Arianna Huffington's "President Obama. Sounds good, right?"
* NY Times': "Elliot Spitzer. We thank you."
* Flock announced: "No sh**, we beat Facebook?!"
* Lou Reed spotting
* Political Satirist Stephen Colbert's "Me, me, me, me, me" acceptance speech for Webby Award's Person of the Year
* Ludacris introducing Will.i.am (top producer and founder of The Black Eyed Peas) for his work on the "Yes we can" music video of Obama.
* Laurie Anderson (experimental performance artist and musician) introduced the legendary David Byrne for his lifetime achievement award
* David Byrne "DJ, Can't you play another tune?" (He was extremely gracious with autographs and photos)
It was a surreal yet exhilirating experience enjoyed by Jamie Sampson, Elliott Herman, Adam Horwitz, Scott McCool, Juan-Carlos Sobrino, Jessica Rainey, Hillary Spencer, Jude Robinson, and of course Glennis McGregor along with me. Quite a number of other winners gave us props about the coolness of design and our breadth of top-notch content.
Thank you to all of you who have made Nature.com a success! You all know the special contributions you have made. A special commendation to Glennis. Not only has she been our online design force, she also had the forethought to enter us into the contest. Now onto preparation to win again next year!
The awards event was kicked off by David-Michel Davies, Executive Director for The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. The MC for the event was none other than the incredibly funny Seth Myers - head writer of SNL and co-anchor of Weekend Update. Great material with impeccable delivery. "If you don't know me, that's because I work on something you might not know: television." "We are here tonight to honor the 2% of the Internet that is not dedicated to pornography." He likened his current success on TV to the equivalent of being a dinosaur groomer. "Thanks a lot Internet."
Over 200 webby awards were handed out. Each recipient only saying five words max as their acceptance speech. Lots of Obama references, quite a number of Slinky jokes (after all the Webby is a dressed-up Slinky), and lots of acceptance speeches by TED and NY Times. The NYT won eight awards including best online newspaper.
Yours truly went up to accept the award for Nature.com. We won for Best in Science in the Society cluster. Sites that empower and educate people, facilitate civic participation and enable learned pursuits. Our ditty "Nature - the natural selection" was met with polite applause for cleverness. OK, it was not the best one of the night but my President Obama lines were all pretty well taken by previous winners (see Arianna Huffington below) but it was more thoughtful than many such as "Thank you very much, really" and "This thing smells like butt."
Highlights of the evening were:
* Onion on World of World of Warcraft
* Arianna Huffington's "President Obama. Sounds good, right?"
* NY Times': "Elliot Spitzer. We thank you."
* Flock announced: "No sh**, we beat Facebook?!"
* Lou Reed spotting
* Political Satirist Stephen Colbert's "Me, me, me, me, me" acceptance speech for Webby Award's Person of the Year
* Ludacris introducing Will.i.am (top producer and founder of The Black Eyed Peas) for his work on the "Yes we can" music video of Obama.
* Laurie Anderson (experimental performance artist and musician) introduced the legendary David Byrne for his lifetime achievement award
* David Byrne "DJ, Can't you play another tune?" (He was extremely gracious with autographs and photos)
It was a surreal yet exhilirating experience enjoyed by Jamie Sampson, Elliott Herman, Adam Horwitz, Scott McCool, Juan-Carlos Sobrino, Jessica Rainey, Hillary Spencer, Jude Robinson, and of course Glennis McGregor along with me. Quite a number of other winners gave us props about the coolness of design and our breadth of top-notch content.
Thank you to all of you who have made Nature.com a success! You all know the special contributions you have made. A special commendation to Glennis. Not only has she been our online design force, she also had the forethought to enter us into the contest. Now onto preparation to win again next year!
See more photos from the gala.
