To put it in just five words, best websites honored at Webbys.
BJ Novak of The Office hosted the 14th Annual Webby Awards show Monday night in New York City — an event called the Oscars of the Internet, celebrating the best websites in a plethora of categories. And to keep things as brief and dynamic as the Internet itself, all the acceptance speeches are held to five words or less.
On the red carpet leading into the event, FoxNews.com talked with some of the nominees, as well as the famous honorees feted just for being themselves — though we couldn’t keep them to that five word limit.
You can’t have an Internet event without thanking two important people, for starters.
Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web tells us he came up with the idea out of frustration — simply because it didn’t exist. “There are so many projects that don’t work, it’s good that some of them do.” Ya think?
So how does the man responsible for the Internet feel about an awards show in the Internet’s honor?
“It’s amazing. It’s not just honoring what I did … the web is a big creative space. There are people doing fantastic things on it. The invention of it was one thing, but it’s mainly just a platform for people to build amazing things on — and it’s a good idea to have an awards show for that medium.”
Vinton Cerf, co-inventor of the Internet, was also humble, reminding us about the fact that the groundwork for the web was laid back in 1973. “It’s like paving the roads. We figured out how to build the road system, figured out the rules of how the cars should go on the road so they don’t run into each other, and everybody else got to figure out what kind of cars to build and what buildings to put on the side of the road,” he told FoxNews.com
“So the fact that other people have been able to take their ideas and make them work on this underlying network is what has turned the Internet into what you see today, an enormous collaboration all around the world.” That’s something Cerf didn’t envision back in the early 80s.
Where does Cerf see the future of the Internet? “More mobile, higher speeds, lots of optical fiber — and off-planet.” He’s currently working on a project with NASA to extend the operation of the Internet across the solar system in order to support both manned and robotic explorations.
Actors BJ Novak and stage and screen star Victor Garber told us their favorite part about the Internet as well.
Says Novak: “My favorite thing is not having to remember anything because I have a bad memory to begin with. It’s very freeing, you never have to remember a name or a date or a restaurant because it’s all there”
Says Garber: “I’m like a pilgrim on the Internet. I don’t know what’s going on. But whenever I try to find something, it’s there, like directions, because I have no sense of direction, or people that you don’t know are still alive — the Internet will tell you all that!”
So does Garber Google himself? “I swear I don’t. If I had nothing else in my day, that would be so sad. I also don’t want to know what people think of me. As long as I get employed that doesn’t really matter.”
Actors Will Arnet and Lisa Kudrow told us why it’s important to be involved in web projects.
Arnet loves that “the turnaround time is really quick. And I think there’s an opportunity to do whatever you want … and you’re not held to the same standards as you are on broadcast.”
Kudrow, star of the online web series “Web Therapy” agrees. “It’s easier and you can do different things that you just can’t do on TV.”
We can’t list all of the 2010 Webby Awards winners, so in keeping with the five-word theme, here are five of the award winners:
Twitter — Best Social Networking Site
Pandora.com — Best Music Site
Factcheck.org — Best Politics Site
BeliefNet.com — Best Religion/Spirituality Site
SesameStreet.org –– Best Family/Parenting Site
For a complete list of the winners, as well as all the five-word acceptance speeches, see webbyawards.org.
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