The fourth annual Webby Awards, honoring excellence and innovation on Internet sites, felt more like a bacchanal. Held in Nob Hill, one of San Francisco's ritziest neighborhoods, the event, from the candlelit pre-party at the Grace Cathedral, to the post-party under white tents at a scrupulously groomed park, was all wild costumes, slinky models, and food, wine and spirits every which way you looked.
But that was last year.
PHOTO:AP
At the fifth annual Webby Awards, on Wednesday night, the mood, like the once-packed restaurants and bars in this city's once high-techie neighborhoods, was notably quieter.
With good reason: Since last year's Webby Awards, more than 500 Internet companies have gone out of business. One-fifth of last year's 135 nominees are out of business and more than half of the 71 Webby Award winners have gone under, been sold or had huge layoffs.
With thousands of dot-comers out of work, joining the Peace Corps, taking in roommates and moving back in with their parents, the Webbys, which chose winners from 150 nominees in 30 categories, was faced with some nominees that had already folded or that stood on the brink.
Much of the show, which for the second year was hosted by Alan Cumming, the impish Scottish actor [who won a Tony award for his role in Cabaret], made light of the dot-bomb industry. Even the show's theme "Do You Still Believe?" poked fun at the reality check of last year.
Tiffany Shlain, the founder and director of the Webbys and its nominating body, the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, did seem to tire a bit of reporters' persistent questions about sagging Net fortunes. In the end, she said, a site's financial health was simply not important in judging its excellence.
"How many books that win Pulitzers are best sellers?" Shlain said. "How many shows that win Emmys still don't make it?"
While well known sites like Travelocity.com and TheOnion.com won Webbys, so did pixyland.org/peterpan (this site, run by a man dressed like Peter Pan, won in the "weird" category) and craigslist.org, which was named best community site by both the academy and by more than 150,000 people who voted in the people's voice awards during a Webcast of the show. The Webbys also honored nonprofit sites like VolunteerMatch.org, for activism, and OpenSecrets.org, for politics.
And while the mood was quieter than last year's and the celebrities fewer (the journalist Sam Donaldson and Julia Butterfly Hill, who sat in a redwood tree for two years, were the biggest non-Net presenters), this is not to say that the Webbys was not a big, merry party.
It was. The ceremony moved from last year's venue, the 2,000-seat Masonic Temple, to the 3,000-seat San Francisco War Memorial Opera House and was still packed. Pink wigs, peekaboo gowns and feather boas (the dress code on the invitation said "gutsy") were heavily represented, and spirits seemed high, even with the long lines to the bar and the empty trays on the appetizer tables.
The ceremony was fast-paced, largely due to the Webby rule limiting acceptance speeches to five words. (They included "Hi, Mom, I love you," and "The secret to happiness is ...")
"Next to the Webbys, the Oscars, Emmys and other televised award shows feel like being sentenced to a week's detention with the class bore," said Scot Harris, a freelance Web page designer, as he sipped a martini from a plastic cup after the show.
Sarah Kempner, a student at the University of California at Berkley (whose boyfriend worked at pets.com until it folded earlier this year) said several people in the row she was sitting in were making a sport out of checking the Webby program for the most endangered Web site.
"It's kind of a gallows humor I guess," Kempner said.
The show reserved its one earnest moment, biggest round of applause and sole standing ovation for the winners of the first Webby Lifetime Achievement Award, Ray Tomlinson and Douglas Englebart, two crucial contributors to the invention of e-mail.
Vint Cerf, a founder of the Internet, made the presentation on behalf of the sponsor of the award, WorldCom, where he is a vice president. Afterward, Cerf said that all the dot-bomb talk was getting a little silly.
"Eighty percent of all start-ups fail -- it's the same formula for all businesses," Cerf said. "This fantastic show proves that we ain't dead yet."
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
Taiwan has experienced its most significant improvement in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, data provided on Sunday by international higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) showed. Compared with last year’s edition of the rankings, which measure academic excellence and influence, Taiwanese universities made great improvements in the H Index metric, which evaluates research productivity and its impact, with a notable 30 percent increase overall, QS said. Taiwanese universities also made notable progress in the Citations per Paper metric, which measures the impact of research, achieving a 13 percent increase. Taiwanese universities gained 10 percent in Academic Reputation, but declined 18 percent
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
UNDER DISCUSSION: The combatant command would integrate fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups to defend waters closest to the coastline, a source said The military could establish a new combatant command as early as 2026, which would be tasked with defending Taiwan’s territorial waters 24 nautical miles (44.4km) from the nation’s coastline, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. The new command, which would fall under the Naval Command Headquarters, would be led by a vice admiral and integrate existing fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups, along with the Naval Maritime Surveillance and Reconnaissance Command, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. It could be launched by 2026, but details are being discussed and no final timetable has been announced, the source