Unlike most awards shows, the Webbys limit acceptance speeches to 5-words. From a marriage proposal to comedienne Sarah Silverman’s “Holocaust. Did it happen? Yes…” the quips were as crazy as you’d expect from a ballroom of uber-creative people. They’re all available for viewing on YouTube so check them out.

Normally, I don’t really care about celebrities. Really. But when they’re in the same room celebrating internet oriented achievements, it’s pretty damn cool. Martha Stewart, Seth Myers, Cameron Diaz, Charlie Rose, Trent Reznor, Molly Sims, Jimmy Fallon and Isabella Rossellini all mingled with the crowd (sort’ve) throughout the night. Quite validating for me considering all those incredibly late nights I spent working in obscurity in the in mid-90’s when the Web was still the domain of socially inept geeks. Not that I was ever one of those. I’m just saying…

The biggest attraction for me was meeting the inventor of the World Wide Web – Tim Berners Lee. I brought along the book he wrote “Weaving the Web” and got it autographed. He was impressed I read it; the dogeared pages with scribbled notes from a decade ago proved my case proved that indeed I was nerdy enough to read a novel about his invention.

Here’s a photo of us walking on the red carpet. Note the book — oh yah!

Here’s a shot of Nicole (right) and our friends from Black Magic Marker (Holland). Both are gorgeous, the picture really doesn’t do them justice. And before you tease me, YES I KNOW I’m a lucky dude.


After the awards gala, we briefly met Seth Meyers and thanked him for emceeing the event. He’s amazingly quick witted, endearing and sincere. And he was cool enough to let us snap a quick photo:

In the end, it was a fantastic weeked. And my 5-word speech? “Geeks Will Inherit the Earth.”

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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!

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I love the idea of making events (be they presidential debates, the inauguration or athletic events) a communal experience.  

The only thing TNT could do better would to give people the option to select from a list of various audio commentaries: comedian (Chris Rock), coach (Bill Walton), legend (Kareem Abdul Jabbar), musician/actor (Jamie Foxx), international experts, etc. C’mon, this would be fun.  Imagine a watching The Masters golf tournament with Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog doing the commentary.  I’d pay for that!

Click Here For Demo Video

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