Nominees Announced April 2nd
Honoring the Best
of the Internet

Spotify, Kendrick Lamar, Carpool Karaoke, Tyler Oakley, AwesomenessTV, The Making Of Hamilton, VRSE, Giphy, VICE, The List App, Reply All, Tinder and Rihanna Announced As 20th Annual Webby Award Nominees

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Damiano DeMonte
212-691-2800
webby@sunshinesachs

Snapchat, Netflix, Slack, Hotline Bling and WhatsApp are nominated for People’s Special Achievement Webby

Voting for People’s Voice Awards Begins Today at http://pv.webbyawards.com

NEW YORK, April 5, 2016 – The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences (IADAS) today announced the Nominees for the 20th Annual Webby Awards, including Google Cardboard, Polyvore, Two Dots, and The Intercept as well as some of the year’s most talked about celebrities like Beyoncé, The Weeknd, One Direction, John Oliver, First Lady Michelle Obama, Tracy Morgan and Carmelo Anthony.

The public has a chance to cast their votes for their pick of the best of the Internet at http://pv.webbyawards.com. Voting for the Webby People’s Voice Awards is open from now until Thursday, April 21, 2016 at 11:59 PM (PT).

IADAS members, including Jimmy Kimmel, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Instagram’s Eva Chen, Questlove, Internet inventor Vint Cerf and Crisis Text Line Founder Nancy Lublin will select The Webby Awards Winners, which will be announced Tuesday, April 26, 2016.

From its earliest days honoring the likes of Napster, Kozmo and HOTorNot to spotting future successes like The Onion, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and Amazon.com before the masses discovered them, The Webby Awards has been the gold standard for celebrating the most noteworthy trends and advancements on the Internet since the Awards Show was established in 1996. As in years past, this year’s Nominees reflect the creativity and emerging technologies that are shaping the world we live in today.

The Nominees include several historical standouts who have withstood the test of not just time, but Internet time. PBS, The Onion and Smithsonian were each nominated at the first Annual Webby Awards in 1997 and have also been recognized this year as Nominees in the 20th Annual Show.

“Since its inception in 1997, The Webby Awards has celebrated inspiring talent and visionary innovation on the Internet,” said David-Michel Davies, Executive Director of The Webby Awards. “This class of 20th Annual Webby Nominees, both veterans and newcomers alike, continues to challenge convention and transform the world in ways we could have only imagined in 1997.”

With virtual reality (VR) tools like Occulus Rift and Google Cardboard reshaping the way people experience and interact with dynamic content online and on their mobile devices, this year’s Webby Awards will recognize excellence and originality in VR across several new categories for the first time. Nominees in these new VR-related categories include The New York Times’ VR series The Displaced, CNN’s VR at the Democratic Debate, Stella Artois’ Buy a Lady a Drink and VRSE’s Walking New York.

From streaming video to podcasts to cutting-edge mobile experiences, 2016 was a banner year for on-the-go content of all kinds. Nominees like the podcasts 99% Invisible, Kara Swisher’s Re/Code Decode and Gimlet Media’s Reply All, along with streaming media platforms like Netflix, Spotify, Pandora, CNNGo and HBO GO, have established new ways to deliver always-on content to consumers who not only crave it, but demand it.

Webby Nominees include some of the world’s most entertaining and viral videos and online series to hit the Internet this year, including Mashable’s Fight Club for Kids, Funny or Die’s Dennis Quaid’s On-Set Freak Out, R/GA’s Tracy Morgan in a Christmas Video, Jimmy Kimmel’s I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Halloween Candy and The Late Late Show’s wildly popular Carpool Karaoke.

This year’s Nominees also highlight the age-old tug-of-war between old media and new media, with legacy standard-bearers like The New York Times, National Geographic, 60 Minutes and The New Yorker going to head-to-head with newer media platforms like VICE Media, Quartz, Refinery29, Mic Network and Well+Good, vying for the best websites, mobile apps and online videos.

Many of the Online ads nominated in the Interactive Advertising and Media category received millions of YouTube views and social media shares, including Love Has No Labels (R/GA), Netflix Socks (Deeplocal), Kids Read Mean Tweets (john st.) and Straight Outta (R/GA).

This year’s Webby Awards received nearly 13,000 entries from all 50 U.S. states and more than 70 countries worldwide. From the thousands of global entries submitted to The Webby Awards, less than 8% were selected as Nominees. The organizations that earned the highest number of nominations this year include VICE Media (16), National Geographic (14), VRSE.Works (12), Google (11), HBO (10),  The New York Times (10), Refinery29 (8), Guardian News & Media (8), CNN (7), PBS (7), CBS Interactive (6), CollegeHumor (6), Onion, Inc (6) and Team COCO Digital (5).

Winners will be celebrated at a special ceremony held at Cipriani Wall Street on Monday, May 16, 2016. This year’s show will be available on demand at webbyawards.com the morning of Tuesday, May 17 and 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.

Deloitte 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://pv.webbyawards.com.

20th Annual Webby Nominee Highlights:

Animals (Social)
Catstacam
Doug the Pug
Goats of Anarchy
Jimmy the Bull
National Geographic Social Media

Best Overall Social Presence (Social)
CNN’s Social Media
Game of Thrones
Mashable
NASA Social Media
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

Best Podcast (Mobile Sites & Apps)
Reply All
Stuff You Should Know
99% Invisible
The New Yorker’s Podcasts
Re/code Decode with Kara Swisher

Best Use of Mobile Camera (Mobile Sites & Apps)
GIPHY CAM
musical.ly
Splice
Heads Up!
Layout

Best Web Personality/Host (Online Film & Video)
Tyler Oakley
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee
The Slow Mo Guys
Kid President
Carmelo Anthony

Celebrity/Fan (Websites)
U2.com
One Direction: Made in the A.M.
Team Coco
ellentv.com
Kendall Jenner

Comedy: Individual Short or Episode (Online Film & Video)
Anaconda – The Education Version (with Nicki Minaj)
Go to College Music Video (with First Lady Michelle Obama)
Dennis Quaid’s On-Set Freak Out: The Full Video
Fight Club for Kids (with Chuck Palahniuk)
Trumptastic Voyage (The Simpsons)

Comedy: Long Form or Series (Online Film & Video)
If Google Was a Guy
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee
Billy on the Street with First Lady Michelle Obama
Celebrities Read Mean Tweets #9 (Jimmy Kimmel Live)
Epic Rap Battles of History

Culture & Lifestyle (Social)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Instagram Account
MoMA Instagram
Refinery29 Facebook
Tastemade Snapchat Discover
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Instagram Account

Entertainment (Mobile Sites & Apps)
Star Wars app
Marvel Unlimited
Saturday Night Live app
The A-Z of YouTube: Celebrating 10 Years
Phallania

Events (Social)
Coders vs. Cancer
#RugbyBattle
Instaconcert
The 69th Annual Tony Awards: An Integrated Digital Experience
The 16th Annual Latin GRAMMY Awards – Social Media Celebration

Fashion & Beauty (Social)
#MINDFCUK
Madewell Social Media
Kiehl’s Act Any Age
Lilly Pulitzer for Target
W Magazine

Games (Mobile Sites & Apps)
You Must Build a Boat
Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes
Vainglory
Her Story
Two Dots

Humor (Websites)
Cracked.com
Funny or Die
John Oliver – Leap Second
ClickHole
The Onion

Media Streaming (Websites)
92Y On Demand
TED
HBO NOW
PBS.org
Pluto TV

Music (Websites)
triple j Hottest 100
Inside Abbey Road
Pitchfork
Spotify – Year in Music 2015
Beyoncé – Official Site

News (Websites)
CNN.com
The Guardian
Quartz
The Intercept
NYTimes.com

Public Service & Activism (Social)
Hurts Me Too
I Am A Witness
Kids Read Mean Tweets
#nofilter campaign
MTV’s Look Different campaign

Sports (Social)
Wall of Jordan
NHL #MyPlayoffsMoment
#SendBadLuck
Wimbledon 2015: Sharing the Moments that Matter
Gamedayplus

Virtual Reality: Gaming, Interactive or Real-Time (Online Film & Video)
Cardboard Crash VR for Google Cardboard
Insidious Chapter 3: Into the Further
House on Hallow Hill
William Hill: Get in the Race
The Neymar Jr. Effect

Weird (Websites)
Adventure Cats
Emoji Party
Run Wars
2 Kinds of People
National Corndog Day

Find The Webby Awards Online:

Website: www.webbyawards.com
Facebook: Facebook.com/TheWebbyAwards
Snapchat: TheWebbyAwards

Twitter: @TheWebbyAwards
YouTube: www.youtube.com/webby

 

About the Webby Awards:
Hailed as the “Internet’s highest honor” by The New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including Websites, Advertising & Media, Online Film & Video, Mobile Sites & Apps and Social. Established in 1996, The Webby Awards received nearly 13,000 entries from all 50 states and over 70 countries worldwide this year. The Webby Awards is presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS). Sponsors and Partners of The Webby Awards include: Xfinity, Google, Vitamin T, YouTube, Adformatie, Advertising Age, Code and Theory, Cool Hunting, Creativepool, Digiday, FITC, Internet Week New York, It’s Nice That, Mashable, Mobile Marketing Association, Moleskine, Ninja Marketing, Northside Festival, NUMA, Social Media Week, SoDA, Springwise, Taste Talks, The Drum, The Guardian News Media, The Hollywood Reporter, Tube Filter and VentureBeat.

Drag