Unlike most awards ceremonies, The Webby Awards limits speeches to just five words, a rule that is only slightly relaxed for special achievement honorees.
The 2007 Webby Awards Acceptance Speeches
Top Five from 2006
“Discover digital objects and handles.” — Dr. Robert Kahn, who received a special lifetime achievement award for co-developing the TCP/IP computer networking protocol that is the basis of the entire Internet. Kahn first presented his speech on a sign in binary code, then in hexadecimal code, before showing it in the more common Roman alphabet. He then suggested the phrase could start a “Da Vinci Code”-like fervor to understand its meaning, before going on to say the next revolution of the Internet would be in content management. He predicted that people would soon be able to carry around all of their personal desktop settings regardless of how or where they logged onto the Internet.
“Jewish American Princesses … Smokin’.'” — JDate.com is a dating service that caters to Jewish singles looking for kosher love. The site, designed by Sparks Network, won the Webby award for best social-networking site.
“Sports? Pornography? Sports? Pornography? Sports!” — ESPN.com won the Webby Awards for best sports site under the entertainment category. The awards show also featured several members of the cast of Avenue Q, a Broadway show consisting of puppets, who performed a scene about how the Internet’s main function is really to host pornography.
“Everything you think is true.” — Prince was awarded a lifetime-achievement award for his Web site NPGMusicslub.com, on which he has released seven full-length albums that are not available anywhere else. The purple potentate of rock then gave a one-song performance that had everyone in Downtown Cipriani crowding the stage.
“Two crackers, fighting racism, yo,” — RememberSegregation.org is a site constructed to recreate the era of racial segregation. Visitors first encounter a screen with two different areas to click on: one for “White Visitors” and the other for “Colored Visitors.” Viewers then get to the site’s main page, which features information on the history of segregation and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Top five runner-ups:
“I have a big … pencil.” — Big Ideas Come From Big Pencils.
“Darlings, make blogs, not war.” — Huffington Post.
“More than just bare breasts.” — Genographic Project, National Geographic.
“Liberals have mojo … we win!” — Mother Jones. After this win was announced, Corddry asked the crowd if there were any conservatives in the audience at all. One person applauded.
“Make UNICEF obsolete … help kids.” — State of the World’s Children 2006, UNICEF
Others from the past:
Al Gore: “Please don’t recount this vote.”
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