Trip to the 2009 Webby Awards – Part 1
This definitely falls into the Social Media @ PLAY category. Back in March, a friend from RHI/The Creative Group encouraged me to enter their online essay contest asking about trends on the Internet. I wrote about the convergence of social media integrating with popular websites that were also streaming live television. Think back to the CurrentTV online broadcast of the Presidential debates that had live tweets streaming across the stream or TNT’s website that allowed users to select their camera angle during the NBA All-Star game and chat with their friends via Facebook Connect. I’m very intrigued on how these 3 areas are being homogenized into an entirely new, communal experience. Face it, American Idol is a lot more fun when simultaneously watching the show and chatting online about it with friends or family spread around the world.
Long story short, my entry was selected by the contest sponsor and the Webby executive director out of a couple hundred entries. So I got a free trip to NYC to watch the Webby’s in-person with my lovely wife Nicole. Mind you, we have 1-year old so this was our first Mommy-Daddy outing in 16-months. You could’ve given me a trip to see Muppets-on-Ice in Paducah, Kentucky and I would’ve been stoked. But to attend the Webby Awards in NYC was beyond awesome.
The Webby Awards are the Oscars for Internet projects. And while most self-respecting Web geeks scoff at awards, this event is to die for. Seriously. You have to win an award to attend — you can’t just buy a ticket. So for most people (including yours truly), it’s a once in a lifetime event.
The cocktail party the night before was the official ice-breaker. And like all good open bars, the ice was broken, crushed and served into free drinks. We met our super-fun hosts from RHI/The Creative Group – Jen and Megan – who couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful. We had fantastic conversations with designers from Weiden + Kennedy, Qik, the LA Times, the BBC Online and big Black Marker, a web development firm from Amsterdam. Amazing talent/people. We ended up befriending the Amsterdam group and sharing a wonderful dinner after the party. They won their Webby for their Tom Tom Secrets website which is super creative – you should check it out.
Here are a couple shots from the evening:
I’ll write about the big Webby Award gala in my next post — coming very soon!
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Lara Kretler on June 11, 2009 @ 7:16 pm
Who knew you have such a lovely other half? You should really show her off more, you know.