The 2008 Webbys for Social Networking and a Look at Some Possible Contenders for 2009
The Webby Awards is the leading international award for work on the web since 1996. The awards are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities making it one of the highly credible digital media honour.
The Webby confers its honours on a lot of categories ranging from website design, usability, business blog, portfolio sites, schools, services, retail, religion, typography, best practices.. ok it sort of seems endless. And for that reason we shall stick to just one of the categories for this post which is best social networking sites.
Social networks are the biggest names in innovation and scale on the web these days, they just talk in millions and their creators become poster boys of the web democracy. In 2006 jDate took the honour while Bebo won the people’s choice award in the category. The year before last Linkedin and Facebook had a tight contest before Linkedin took the Webby while FB took the people’s love. Last year the contenders were from a diverse range. We had a platform, two websites and a browser vying for the top award. The list on nominees included:
While Facebook continued to be the people’s darling to take the award home the second straight year, Flock the social borwser won the ultimate Webby award in the category.
The awards with its nominations gave an interesting twist to the category, at least it made me write this post if nothing else. 
What we see here isn’t just the numbers flocking to these sites, or the features that each of these sites bring that someone else can’t.
If anything the Webby of 2008 proves that usability and user freedom is the cornerstone of appreciation. With that thought in mind I put a mini prediction of who can be up for nominations this year. I have tried to maintain the slightly out of the box kind of mix that we saw in last year’s nominations. And the distinguished choices are:
- Buddypress – Community driven publishing system
- urTBox – Media driven talent showcase and networking site with an uber cool look for a social network
- Change.org – Conscience driven social network for those willing to bring change (not an Obama network)
Alright, that’s even smaller than what one would call a mini list. Again these are just some of the sites that I am excited about after having found them out lately. Anyway, the application to nominate this year’s killer web work ends 30th January, so here’s hoping for more surprises and some exciting work on the web this time around.
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BuddyPress looks extremely interesting. It is great but i have my reservations about its utility and also a few cons. Would love to see an analysis on its current state and your thoughts on how it will lead into the future.
On my mind