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Missing Richard Simmons, 2 Dope Queens, Trumpcast, Women of the Hour, Homecoming, FiveThirtyEight, and In the Dark Among Inaugural Webby Award Podcast Nominees
Voting for People’s Voice Awards Kicks Off Today at http://vote.webbyawards.com
NEW YORK, April 4, 2017 – The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences (IADAS) today announced the Nominees for the 21st Annual Webby Awards, including Stranger Things, Google, ellentube, Pokémon Go, Spotify, and Quartz, as well as some of the year’s most talked-about personalities, including Beyoncé, Malcolm Gladwell, Residente, Grimes, Serena Williams, Michael Phelps, Coldplay, Grace Helbig, and Pharrell Williams.
All Nominees are eligible to win the Internet industry’s two most prestigious awards: The Webby Award, as selected by the Academy, and The Webby People’s Voice Award, voted on by the online public at http://vote.webbyawards.com. Voting for the Webby People’s Voice Awards is open from now until Thursday, April 20, 2017, at 11:59 PM (PT).
IADAS members including Jimmy Kimmel, Making a Murderer’s Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, Gimlet Media’s Alex Blumberg, Instagram’s Eva Chen, Questlove, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian, and Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Opal Tometi will select the Webby Winners, which will be announced on Tuesday April 25th, 2017.
This year, Nominees addressed complex social issues, including gun violence, free speech, homelessness, women’s rights, cancer, climate change, domestic abuse, human trafficking, bullying, workplace discrimination, and the global refugee crisis, through powerful campaigns like #MoreThanMean, 25M2Syria, Girls of Paradise, Women’s Footprint in History, and Free the Speech.
“Webby Nominees are using the Internet in incredible ways to bring people together through humor, emotion, innovation, empathy, passion, optimism, and eccentricity—all of the elements that make for truly great Internet,” said David-Michel Davies, Executive Director of the Webby Awards. “In a year marked by so much discord and divisiveness, The Webby Awards is honored to recognize the work and efforts of our Nominees as they explore new ways to use the Internet to inform our world and bring people together.”
In the midst of a highly contentious election year, it is no surprise that politics dominated the Internet in 2016 and this year’s Webby Nominees certainly reflect that, with The Washington Post, The Young Turks, The Guardian, The Messy Truth, Univision, Voter Information Project, The Axe Files, and Vice President Joe Biden recognized for their contributions.
The Webby Awards recognized several standouts this year across 10 new categories in Podcasts & Digital Audio, celebrating what has quickly become one of the most popular—and profitable—content and advertising media on the Internet. Inaugural Webby Nominees in Podcasts & Digital Audio include Women of the Hour, In the Dark, Modern Love, The Hilarious World of Depression, FiveThirtyEight, Science Vs, and My Dad Wrote a Porno.
A record number of media companies were recognized this year for their critical role in developing new content platforms and dynamic online experiences to bring to life the stories that captivated our hearts, minds, and attention. Media Nominees across a variety of categories include BuzzFeed, VICE Media, Teen Vogue, The New York Times, CNN, The Guardian, HBO, National Geographic, WIRED, The Hollywood Reporter, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, TIME, BBC, ESPN, Bloomberg, PBS, Quartz, Fatherly, Refinery29, and The Intercept.
With humor and levity as a unifying platform, some of the most entertaining viral videos and online series on the Internet were recognized as Webby Nominees this year, including Beyonce – “Formation,” Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Kimmel Live’s Mean Tweets, Undercover Lyft, A Year in Space, Lebron: the Musical, Pentatonix & Dolly Parton – “Jolene,” Chef’s Table, and Marty McFly & Doc Brown Visit Jimmy Kimmel Live. Noting the growing popularity of video consumption on social media channels, The Webby Awards launched a new category this year to celebrate the best in Social Video, recognizing Nominees including CNN Election 2016, The Best of Late Late Show Snapchat, Deep Instagram, 60 Second Docs, The Met 360 Project, Ask a Muslim Girl, and Rockets are Cool.
Many of the Online Ads nominated in the Advertising, Media & PR category received millions of YouTube views and social media shares, including AT&T’s The Unseen (BBDO New York), TacoBot (Deutsch), Field Trip to Mars (McCann New York), We Are America (R/GA), V Skills (TKT Sydney), SlowDown GPS (Forsman & Bodenfors), and Project Muze (Stinkdigital). Virtual reality (VR) also continues to grow in popularity as people look for new ways to experience and engage with content online. Nominees across the VR categories this year include IKEA Virtual Reality Showroom, Samsung Bedtime Stories VR, BBC Home: A VR Spacewalk, The People’s House, and Greenpeace: A Journey to the Arctic.
This year’s Webby Awards received a record-setting 13,000 entries from all 50 states and 70 countries worldwide. From the thousands of global entries submitted to The Webby Awards, fewer than 9% were selected as Nominees. The organizations earning the highest number of nominations this year include: Google (16), Vice Media (15), Conde Nast (14), BBC (12), National Geographic (12), HBO (10), Washington Post (9), ESPN (9), New York Times (9), Airbnb (9), Squarespace (7), Buzzfeed (7), Intel (5), CollegeHumor (5), Spotify (5), GIPHY (4), and The Onion (4).
Winners will be celebrated at a star-studded ceremony held at Cipriani Wall Street on Monday, May 15, 2017. This year’s show will be available on demand at webbyawards.com the morning of Tuesday, May 16. The Webby Awards video channel will feature all the show highlights, including special performances and all the hallmark 5-Word Speeches from the night’s big Winners.
EY provides vote tabulation consulting for The Webby Awards. For a complete list of nominees and to vote for the People’s Voice Awards, please visit http://vote.webbyawards.com