Shona Ghosh

Webby Award winners will be announced tomorrow, with hundreds of techies nominees jostling to win accolades across the categories of ‘website’, ‘interative advertising’, ‘mobile’ and ‘online film & video’. Obviously website is the biggie, and site categories range from ‘activism’ to ‘youth’. Two awards are available in each site category; the panel’s choice and the people’s choice.

Mostly no one really cares about the Webbies, but they’re an excellent way of discovering new sites. Look out for the ones favoured by the great unwashed people’s choice rather than the judge panel. I only discovered PostSecret after last year’s awards, and Sad Guys on Trading Floors is an excellent piss-take this year. Take a look at the rest of the Weird section by way of example.

British websites are doing reasonably well with 58 nominations, with the Beeb vying for eight and the Guardian for six. A few of my own media-related predictions. I’ll be posting on the winners tomorrow:

Best newspaper: New York Times. Tough call, but it’s consistently one step ahead of the Guardian when it comes to innovating news content.

Best news: The Huffington Post. Daily Beast has been gaining momentum, but isn’t quite there yet.

Podcast: The Guardian. Maybe because of my own particular attachment to the nice producers there who let me mess about in the control room on work experience.

Perhaps to compensate for the fact that really, it should be a cloud-based ceremony, techie histrionics are limited to a 5 word acceptance speech. Corkers include ‘Can someone fix my computer?’ from 2007’s top artist Beastie Boys and ‘Shit, I only get five words? Shit, that was five. Four more there. That’s three. Two’ from David Bowie accepting a lifetime achievement award.

Here’s a pick of the best from last year:

Top 5 5-worders, 2008

“Thank you for this Pulitzer.”  Onion News Network, News & Politics: Series

“We enjoy sleeping with you.”  Ikea Mattress, Retail

“Get your money for nothing.”  Mint.com, Banking

“And your mint for free.”  Mint.com, Financial Services

“Thanks, in 72 point Helvetica.” Veer, Best Use of Typography

You can view the rest here, and you can submit your own #5words speech to @thewebbyawards.