The 6th annual Webby Awards were held at the Legion of Honor Museum in San
Francisco on June 18, 2002. Since I had done some work with the
PR department, and we had been nominated for
an award, I got invited to the party. I didn't actually get to see the
actual award ceremony.
We arrived to a reception that had all sorts of interesting web
luminaries. I spent a good portion of my time talking to some people
who were there from PETA (the woman was dressed in an outfit that
looked as though it was made out of lettuce, and she was urging
everyone to turn vegetarian...)
During the award ceremony, they were serving hors d'oeuvres at the
party. Unfortunately, they ran out of food by the time the ceremony was
over, so nobody who actually watched the award presentations actually
got to eat. I don't remember what Google's five-word acceptance speech
was this year, but the previous one was "It's all about the users." A
nice sentiment...
It was a bit strange at the party. Several people who had been to the
previous year's party told me that it was much lower-key than it had
been in previous years; with the crash of the dot-com bubble, there
was much less interest in a web award. Nevertheless, it still struck
me as a lavish affair, complete with costumed greeters at the door.
And it's not every day I go to parties that are held in museums.
After the party, the crowd was ushered outside for a
surprise. As we
waited in the cold night air (the official website describes it as "an
unusually balmy San Francisco summer night," but I'd characterize it as
a pretty normal (
i.e. slightly chilly) San Francisco summer
night...) Outside they had set up a huge
Tesla coil, which shot bolts
of
lightning as some robots battled it out underneath.
After the party, Larry decided that he didn't feel like
carrying the Webby home, so he gave it to me to bring in to work the
following morning. (There was a suggestion that I should take it out
and try and impress some people in the bars that night, but I think
whoever made it is a bit out of touch with what impresses the guys in
San Francisco...) So the Webby spent the night on my kitchen counter,
but it did provide some conversation during the carpool in the
morning...