Webby Award 2004 Winners Announced

ivar writes "Over at the official site, the 2004 Webby Award Winners have been announced. There were a few surprises given the last publicly viewable rankings - I guess they keep the last few days in secrecy for a reason." The press release announcing the winners has more detail, noting: "Reflecting the egalitarian spirit of the internet, winners ranged from Wikipedia.org (Best Community), a free, community-built encyclopedia, to the official site for the Oscar-winning documentary The Fog of War (Best Film), to web powerhouses like Google (Best Practices and Best Services)."

Comments

Just so long as no Flash sites won.

[Power Everywhere]

There's nothing worse for the web than Flash. Can't be bookmarked, needs a plugin, version dependent, source can't be studied, and the W3C has no control over it.

Valid XHTML 1.1 and CSS are the way to go, no matter who or what's writing it.

Re:Just so long as no Flash sites won.

[bonkedproducer]

Yeah, and color TV is evil and sucks the soul out of everything. Flash has it's place, and has made great strides in usability - just because it's not the way you would do things doesn't mean it is evil. If you don't like flash - DON'T VIEW OR SUPPORT SITE'S THAT USE IT - but it has it's place just like every other peice of technology on the planet. Damn, the W3C has no control over those pesky games people play over the internet either, let's make sure we dump the entire games category from the webby's. Slashdot users, for the most part WE ARE GEEKS! I am proud to say that I fit that description, but everytime I see a fellow /.er bemoan some peice of technology because THEY don't like it, it smacks of elitism, and intolerance, are you just trying to get back at someone in the past that made you feel inferior? Or maybe you're just challenged because something you don't use is liked by someone else? Having said all that, yes, XHTML and CSS are excellent tools as well, and often more useful than flash, but sometimes moving images, sound, etc. go a lot farther than static images and text to create an experience, as for those that said Flash is a bastardization of all the Internet was meant to be, sorry, next time we want to create anything we'll clear it with you.

Where's Slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 2004 Webby Award Winners have been announced.

I don't understand. Wikipedia and Google are cool and everything... but what about Slashdot??

wikipedia

[ambienceman]

Wikipedia (and affiliates) should be on that list because the interface is clean. It's easy to get around and go off on tangent while searching something. It's open...and it's educational. I learned a lot of cool facts.

Like where the " All your base are belong to us " come from. And yes, ive just proved that I am not worthy of reading Slashdot because I didn't know wtf that came from.

Oh well, no Groklaw

[FunWithHeadlines]

Sorry to see Groklaw not on the list, especially in the law group. I've learned more about the law in the last year from that site than I learned anywhere else...by far. It is also an example of a true community site that formed by self-selection. People just flocked to the site and made it what it became. The power of many-eyes in action, this time to discuss legal cases that could greatly impact our tech lives.

I respectfully disagree

[Deitheres]

I know that Flash is not popular here on Slashdot. No flamebait or trolling intended, but you gotta realize we are no longer in the world of lynx. You may still use it, I may still use it on occasion (just like you and I may still use vi or emacs), but the general public wants multimedia content. While it is true that Flash requires a plugin, so do many other things (such as java on mozilla). The necessity of a plugin does not make something inherently bad (IMO).

Flash allows for cross-browser, cross-platform web development. If I create a Flash animation I do not have to worry about how it will appear on Mac/Linux/Windows/Netscape/Mozilla/IE/Opera. It will be consistent across all platforms. The same cannot be said for HTML and CSS. Even though standards have been set, rendering software does not always abide by those standards (mainly this only applies to MS).

Long story short, and I know it's slightly OT, I think Flash is a great way to present good looking multimedia content with a (relatively) small footprint. What does bother me are websites that do flash-only, or use flash unnecessarily. You should not design an ENTIRE site in flash, and if you do you should at least provide a non-flash site for your users.

Just my $.02

Re:I respectfully disagree

[Deitheres]

Well I will admit that it has been a long time since I have run Linux (long story, wife is not a computer person can't "understand" Linux blah blah blah), but I never had any problems with flash animations between platforms. Now, when I last used Linux the only browsers available were Netscape or Opera, so I have no experience with Mozilla/Konq/Foo Browser under Linux... In the past, I never had an issue between IE/Windows and Netscape/Linux as far as rendering the animation. Granted, both versions of Flash were version 4.0 (I believe). I do not know what the status of Flash releases are these days, and it may be an issue where version releases are not kept consistent across OS platforms, although I could be wrong.

Also, I think you misunderstood my point about CSS/HTML. You said when valid HTML is "displayed on a standards compliant browser, it will be the same." I agree, but the point that I was trying to make is that IE is not exactly compliant with W3C standards. That was the only point I was trying to get across.

Out of curiousity, is there an OSS alternative for Flash? A quick Google search did not provide anything that stuck out to me, maybe a fellow slashdotter can fill us in!

Dan

Re:I respectfully disagree

[iammaxus]

But you are missing the point of the web entirely. Flash is managed by one company, its control is not in the hands of a consortium but a for-profit company. HTML does have problems being used cross-platform, but thats just beacuse of the nature of its creation, by a relatively disjointed consortium and there is no way around it. Sure the proprietary nature of it gives it advantages but it gives it disadvantages too.

Regardless, personally, i think the biggest porblem with Flash is how hard it is for machines to get data from it. As soon as google starts giving me results for Flash based content, maybe i will change my mind.

Crap!

[jandrese]

It used to be that winning a Webby ment your website wouldn't be around for the next year (they had this great knack at picking websites that were on the verge of shutting down).

This year: Google wins two categories. I'm frightened.

It's so 1997...

[leshert]

I signed up for the 'Webby' nominations last year, and got a reasonable number of emails from them (not all-out spam, but maybe 6-7).

Maybe it's just me, but the whole tone of the thing leaves me with the impression that the Webby folks have an extraordinarily high (but unfounded) opinion of themselves. Reading the mails they sent, I was transported back in time to the mid-1990s, when The New Economy was going to leave the brick-and-mortar dinosaurs choking on comet dust.

I think we may have found the last few dozen people who haven't woken up from the Internet Bubble.

Re:Google? Best Practices?

[next1]

dude, you're from new zealand, one of the most peaceful countries in the world. low crime rate, low violent crime rate, no nukes, no wars.

cities in america such as new york and washington have amongst the HIGHEST rates of gun murders and assaults in the world.

america is riddled with guns and riddled with gun violence. new zealand is NOT riddled with guns and, coincidentally, NOT riddled with gun violence. hmmm..

look at the school shootings in the US. kids carrying guns to school, guns they have often sourced from their own homes, ie; guns that were intended for self-defence as you describe.

do you really think you'd hold the same view if that was your reality?

Hey, Taco, ...

[WIAKywbfatw]

Hey, Taco, I see you found the "post anonymously" option.