The Webbie Awards bill themselves as the Oscars of the Internet.

The 9th year awards are out.
Eligibility requirements are:

The 9th Annual Webby Award Competition is open to all organizations and individuals involved in designing, building, managing, maintaining, marketing or promoting web sites for business, consumer or general audiences. Web sites entered must have been in general use for at least part of calendar year 2004 and be live and accessible from the time of entry through June 2005.

An entry fee is required. That knocks out several million sites and blogs at fees of 195.00 US for first category entry, 150.00 for second category entry and 95.00 US for third party category.

There are fifty seven categories, many business related.

There is a juried winner and a people’s choice winner.
The “Academy judges six criteria:

Content
Structure and Navigation
Visual Design
Functionality
Interactivity
Overall Experience

Who are the host and judges

The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 500-member body of leading web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities.

The Academy is an intellectually diverse organization that includes members such as musicians Beck and David Bowie, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, political columnist Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, “Smart Mobs” author Howard Rheingold, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison, and The Body Shop president Anita Roddick. Members also include writers and editors from publications such as The New York Times, Wired, Details, Fast Company, Elle, The Los Angeles Times, Vibe, and WallPaper. The 8th Annual Webby Awards received entries from 36 countries and generated over 100 million media impressions.

Thats nice. A gala awards will be held in New York City, June 6th. I guess if entrants can afford the fees, they can afford to fly in to recieve their award.

How many sites are you familar with?

The religion and spiritual health category winner, peoples choice and nominees are sites I’ve never seen but were able to afford an entrance fee.

WEBBY AWARD WINNER
Speaking of Faith
CREATED ORGANIZATION American Public Media

PEOPLE’S VOICE WINNER

Spirituality & Health
CREDITED ORGANIZATION Spirituality & Health

NOMINEES

FaithStreams
CREDITED ORGANIZATION Faith & Values Media

GraceCathedral
CREDITED ORGANIZATIONGrace Cathedral

MyJewishLearning
CREDITED ORGANIZATION MyJewishLearning

Speaking of Faith American Public Media

Spirituality & Health Spirituality & Health

Boing Boing won the judges and peoples awards.
The nominees were flikr, hicks design, The Snowsuit Effort and WorldChanging, an environmental site looking to hire.

That’s great if organizations and business and sites can afford to enter and call themselves the Oscars of the Internet and hold gala awards in NYC.

I’m partial to the non-commercial peer recognizion events popular to us non-commercial web users.

How many sites do you recognize from the different categories? Only 26 rang a bell.