The Webby Award

The Webby.

Quoted from the site: “The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence in web design, creativity, usability and functionality.” Do you think the “Webby” is a pointless award? I have decided to pose this question after a recent discussion with a friend (who has a distaste for award ceremonies of all kinds) about whether or not the Internet actually needs an award such as this.

Personally, I think that the Webby’s are a great idea. Even if only to legitimize the world wide web (not that it needed to be). My basic argument for the Webby’s is not in the award itself, but rather in what the award represents. That is, it highlights innovation. It also serves as a “seal of approval” in the sense that there is a certain cache/reliability that one could associate with a site that has received a Webby.

An argument is that, like the Oscar/Emmy/other ‘name’ award, the Webby is less about rewarding innovation and is just another example of the corporate nature that the internet seems to be heading towards (one could compare the seemingly “Everything is free” notion of the internet during its early years to today, where it seems like everything requires your credit card details to proceed further).

Thoughts?