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There's one big difference between the Webby Awards and other ceremonies, like the Oscars, Emmys and Grammys: Virtually no one who wins a Webby thanks the academy.In spite of that difference, the Webbys have a lot in common with other industry awards. In addition to their similar names, statuettes and ceremonies, the Webbys, the Oscars, the Emmys and the Grammys all rely on groups of professionals to select their winners. Plus, the awards are among the most prestigious that people can receive in each of their respective fields.

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YouTube co-founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley accept the Webby Person of the Year award at the 11th Annual Webby Awards in New York City -- without thanking the academy.

In this article, we'll talk about what the Webby Awards are and how they've changed and grown as the very thing they honor -- online excellence -- has also changed and grown. You'll also learn why almost no one who wins a Webby thanks the academy, even though there is an academy to thank. Let's start with some Webby history. The Webby Awards made their debut in 1996, long before the Internet was as prevalent as it is today. A magazine called The Web used donations to fund the awards, which recognized sites in 15 categories. Around 700 people attended the first Webby Awards ceremony, which was held at a San Francisco nightclub.

In 1998, The Web folded, and the newly formed International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences took over the Webby Awards. The Academy still exists today -- it's a voting body of Internet experts, business leaders and others. Its purpose is to recognize and encourage high-quality Internet content as well as to provide education and networking for technology professionals and the public. As with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, membership in the Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences is by invitation only.

Photo courtesy The Webby Awards
Webby Awards founder and ambassador Tiffany Schlain addresses gala attendees at the 10th annual Webby Awards.

­The Webby Awards grew in tandem with the dot-com bubble. In 2000, about 3,000 people attended the awards ceremony at the San Francisco Opera House. By 2002, after the collapse of the bubble, the size of the production had shrunk dramatically -- about 600 people attended the event, which was more like a conference than a flashy awards show. In 2003, the Webby Awards temporarily retreated to the virtual world, recognizing sites in 30 categories in an online ceremony.As the industry recovered from the dot-com collapse, the Webby Awards started to grow again. The 11th annual awards, which took place in 2007, recognized winners from about 8,000 entries that came from more than 60 countries around the world [source: Webby Awards].

Today, the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences has more than 550 members, and the 2008 awards will involve more than 100 categories. The winners won't just be Web sites you can browse on your computer. The Academy has expanded its scope, and it now recognizes the sites you can visit and services you can use from mobile devices. It also bestows awards in interactive advertising and online film and video.
Next, we'll look at how the academy selects all these winners and why winning the spiral statue is a prestigious honor.

The Webby Awards selection process works much like that of other major awards. People who are affiliated with Web sites, or who have permission to represent those Web sites, submit entries to the Academy and pay a fee to do so. This fee does not guarantee that the site will win an award -- it simply grants the site a place in the pool of entries. This is much like the nomination process for the Emmy Awards, but different from the Grammy Awards, in which the Recording Academy's members nominate artists for awards. Companies that have some kind of presence on the Web can enter in four categories:

• Web sites
• Interactive advertising, including banner ads and viral advertising
  
• Online film and video, which became its own category with its own ceremony at the 11th annual Webby Awards
• Mobile, or the sites you can visit from your cell phone or other mobile device
  

In order to be eligible for an award, sites must be:

• In existence for at least part of the year prior to the award ceremony
• Accessible until after the ceremony is over
• Free from hate speech or pornographic content

Competing sites must also be accessible to the primarily English-speaking Academy members. Non-English film and video entries must be dubbed in English so the judges can understand them.
Once the deadline for nominations passes, site reviewers, who are experts in related fields, judge each of the nominees. Reviewers are not permitted to discuss their analysis with other reviewers, and they can't review sites that present a conflict of interest. At least two judges review each site, and the Academy compiles a list of results into a short list of finalists. Academy members review the short list and narrow it down to five nominees in each category.
The Academy has specific judging criteria for Web sites, videos, advertisements and mobile applications. The overall experience is part of every category. When judging Web sites and mobile sites, reviewers look at several aspects, including content, structure, navigation, visual design, functionality and interactivity. Criteria for advertising entries include creativity and integration. For video and film entries, reviewers look at the concept and writing and the craft of the finished piece. Academy members weigh the criteria differently depending on the purpose of the site.
Academy members can vote for one site in each category that is within their area of expertise. The Academy also designates exceptional sites that do not earn a nomination or award as Official Honorees. A maximum of 20 percent of the sites entered can become Official Honorees. Members of the public get to vote, too -- in each category, the site that receives the most public votes wins the People's Voice Award. All voting takes place online, and the independent firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers oversees the process to make sure the final tallies are accurate.
In 2008, the selection process for the Webby Awards involves narrowing down a pool of 9,500 entries from all 50 U.S. states and more than 60 countries. Next, we'll look at what happens when the votes are all tallied and it's time to hand out the awards.

Academy Members The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences has more than 550 members who specialize in each of the four categories included in the Webby Awards. Members include "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, Scott Adams of "Dilbert," Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry's, Arianna Huffington and musicians Beck and David Bowie. Other members include professors, industry professionals, business leaders and journalists. The Academy has a full roster of its members.

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Once the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences has made its choices, Webby Award winners are announced at official ceremonies. In 2008, the Webby Film and Video Awards will take place in New York City on June 9. The Webby Awards will take place on the following day at Cipriani Wall Street. Winners receive certificates and statuettes that look like springs inscribed with binary code.

Photo courtesy The Webby Awards
Ninja of Ask A Ninja, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, creators of Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiment, & Kent Nichols, creator of Ask A Ninja at the Webby Film & Video Awards

The Webby Awards ceremony has one big difference from many other major award ceremonies -- recipients have a strict limit for the length of their acceptance speech. The Oscars give recipients a time limit, and we all know about the infamous tactic of "cuing the music" to encourage especially verbose award-winners to leave the stage. But the Webbys go one step further, giving recipients an explicit word limit. People who receive Webby Awards have to make their point in five words or fewer. Here are a few of the five-word speeches from the 2007 ceremony, from the Webby Awards official site:

• CNET.com: This one's for James Kim.
  
• LinkedIn: Come connect with me tonight.
• Sony.com: The focus groups were right.
  
• Adobe CS2.3 - The Creative Mind: Ask me about my monkey.
  
• That Guy: Hey, don't be that guy.
  
• Salon.com: The Pulitzers are history.
  

Photo courtesy The Webby Awards
Stephen Voltz and Fritz Globe, creators of The Great Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments and winner of Best Viral Video, perform as guests exit The 11th Annual Webby Awards.