For those of you whose usage does not extend beyond www.donkeyfun.com the announcement of the webby awards, the self-styled Oscars of the internet will have passed by unnoticed.
Mind you, chosen as they are from a self-selecting bunch of applicants best filed under the usual suspects, even for enthusiasts there is little reason to be remotely moved by their existence. Except that the awards ceremony held recently included a technical restriction which could serve as a beacon to all those in the back-slapping industry.
Speeches at the event were restricted to five words in length. No more than five words could be gushed by anyone going up to receive their gong (presumably a golden mouse, or maybe a dislocated wrist mounted on a plinth). Of course, this precluded any representative of HalleBerry.com taking their bow, and GwynethPaltrow.org was notable by its absence, but what a brilliant concept. With only five words available, thanks cannot be repeated, tears cannot stain the carpet, boredom cannot set in halfway through a speech (though possibly not in the case of BBC News's "Striving to report things fairly.")
The organisers reckon that the writing of a speech has become almost as important to the winners as receiving their due reward. Hours, they claim, are expended in the pursuit of the right five words to choose. The results, they insist, are miniature literary masterpieces, modern-day web haikus.
This being an internet event, absurd over-hyping is the order of the day, naturally. And if this year's speeches are the fruit of hundreds of hours of creative thinking then only the winner of the film section, www.donniedarko.com with "Spielberg, give us a budget" and the Guggenheim's effort on picking up the broadband category ("Through art we see everything") even remotely justify all the brainstorming.
Despite the clarity of the instructions, several winners couldn't actually follow them. Amazon.com's acceptance of the commerce award - "our stock is rising" - was not only a word shy of the required target, it was also, in the current market climate, factually inaccurate. And as for Yahoo's "This is my kind of speech", at one word more than was allowed, this was typical of the web: trying to get away with more than can actually be delivered.
Even so, let's hope that the organisers of the Oscars, the Baftas, the Brits, the Grammys and most of all the UK Press Gazette Journalist of the Year awards are aware of the prescriptive nature of the webbys. Next year, wouldn't it make a change to hear So Solid Crew restricted to five words (that's half a syllable each). Or a best supporting actor clam up. Or anyone come up with anything to match the clear winner of the webbys' speech of the year, Ozzy Osbourne, who picked up the TV website of the year trophy with this five word eulogy: "mmmmm, thank you very much."
