Ghosts of the Webby Awards

God help us, the Webby Awards are happening in New York next week, so it's perhaps appropriate to take a look back at some Award-winning sites from a few years ago which, despite all the Webby confetti showered on them, haven't survived.

In 2000, there were 135 sites nominated for awards; today most of them are still in existence, which isn't that extraordinary, given that the Webby Awards do a very poor job of awarding any underground Web content at all. Instead, they spend a lot of time awarding well-established sites such as msnbc.com, abcnews.com, slashdot.org, scholastic.com, pbs.org, theonion.com, etc., and pay lip service to a very short list of outsiders so that they appear to be open-minded.

This kind of mutual back-patting and cronyism among New Media "players" has always been an earmark of the Webbies; cynics will note that award-giving to media outlets is nothing more than a way to ensure that the people who get them will prominently place news of their award status on their home pages, which will raise the profile of the Webbies (something this organization desparately needs these days).

FWIW, I actually went to a Webbie Award ceremony; one of the first, back in the late 1990's. Back then, it was a big-budgeted affair held at New York's Webster Hall. The ceremonies were long, boring, and painful to listen to, and by the time they were half-concluded, the smell of powerful marijuana (every third or fourth person in the audience seemed to be lighting up) was so powerful that I actually had to leave. I'll never forgive myself for missing George Clinton's Interstellar Spaceship, which landed much later in the evening, but I learned something important about the Webbies: nobody in that stoned-out crowd is to be taken seriously.

I won't waste your time with an extended tirade against the Webbies; instead, let's get to the meat of it: which sites were awarded by the Webbies in 2000 which no longer exist or linger on in an advanced state of decay? One would think that their "fabulousness" would have given them enough of a jolt to continue their grim sojourn through cyberspace, but for the sites listed below, fame didn't translate very well into fortune.

Dead/Severely Wounded Webby Award Winners From the Year 2000

Feed Magazine
www.feedmag.com
Webby Award Winner, 2000, Prints and Zines
Status, June 2005: Domain stilll active, site not operational, although site displays "...returning soon..." message which has evidently been there for years.

FarmClub
www.farmclub.com
Webby Award Nominee, 2000, Music Category
Status, June 2005: Site gone, domain inactive.

FrozenFeline
frozenfeline.com
Webby "People's Voice" Award Nominee, Weird Category
Status, June 2005: Site is active, but was last updated in December of 2000.

Green Witch Internet Radio
www.greenwitch.com
Webby Award Winner, Radio Category
Status, June 2005: Domain still active, site displays small graphic icon, but is not otherwise operational.

Happy Puppy
happypuppy.com
Webby Award Nominee, 2000, Games Category
Status, June 2005: Site is still active, but spits out so much truly dangerous-looking pop-up SPAM that I feared that I would have to power down my computer.

KIISFM
www.kiisfmi.com
Webby "People's Voice" Award Winner, Radio Category
Status, June 2005: Site gone, domain inactive.

Kozmo
www.kozmo.com
Webby Award Nominee, 2000, Services Category
Status, June 2005: Site gone, domain inactive.

Lonely Planet's CitySync
www.citysync.com
Webby Award Nominee, 2000, Travel Category
Status, June 2005: Web site still active, but the service it promotes was discontinued June 30, 2004.

MobShop
www.mobshop.com
Webby Award Nominee, 2000, Commerce Category
Status, June 2005: Site gone, domain inactive.

proteinTV
www.proteintv.com
Webby Award Nominee, 2000, Film Category
Status, June 2005: Site now points to a page identifying itself as "a place holder for your future web site."

Quokka Sports
www.quokka.com
Webby Award Nominee, 2000, Sports Category
Status, June 2005: URL now points to a German company that appears to sell outdoor grills.

Respect Your Mind: Protect Your Body
www.respectprotect.com
Webby Award Nominee, 2000, Health Category
Status, June 2005: Forget about respecting your mind or protecting your body - this site now redirects to a hard-core porn site.

SportsJones.com
www.sportsjones.com
Webby Award Nominee, 2000, Sports Category
Status, June 2005: Site still active, last updated in July of 2001.

sputnik7
www.sputnik7.com
Webby Award Nominee, 2000, Music Category
Status, June 2005: Site still active; last press release issued August, 2001.

Swoon
www.swoon.com
Webbie Award Nominee, 2000, Living Category
Status, June 2005: Site still active, daily calendars malfunctioning.

Thrive Online
thriveonline.com
Webby Award Winner, 2000, Health Category
Status, June 2005: URL redirects to Oxygen Media.

Stile Project
www.stileproject.com
Webby "People's Voice" Award Winner, Weird Category
Status, June 2005: Site has devolved into a hard-core porn site. Don't go there.

VIDEO FARM
www.videofarm.com
Webby Award Winner, 2000, Broadband Category
Status, June 2005: Site is gone; URL now points to a generic search page maintained by the same mysterious organization that powers many of the Web's dead sites.

Webvan
www.webvan.com
Webby Award Nominee, 2000, Services Category
Site gone, domain inactive.