Articles

Amateurism was dominating the Web by the close of 1996. The power to publish globally had always had an intoxicating effect, but it usually wore off after a time. Now, the Web appeared to be crowded with under-age users experimenting with drugs. New-fangled capabilities to animate images, blink text, scroll messages, pop up windows, and other "look what I can do" tricks were as rewarding to the authors' egos as they were irritating to their readers. Many Newbie sites looked more like a three-ring circus than an information resource. And, of course, they got awards from their peers, other Newbies.

Amateurism wasn't confined to "overnight webmasters." Many commercial sites were just as bad, if not worse. One multinational company, whose name rhymes with "lonely," had a home page that must have been the size of an office cubicle. For the privilege of scrolling right and left, down and up, over and over again; one had to first wait over ten minutes for it to download. Needless to say, this elaborate faux pas didn't last long.

The number of Web awards continued to grow in 1997. There were now thousands of them in dozens of countries. It seemed like just about every other site had some award to "earn." No matter what type they offered, Web awards were still a great gimmick for getting others to interact with one's site. Little or no thought was given to how detrimental it was to reward bad taste and judgment. Fortunately, not all award programs did this, like the Médaille d'Or and Webby Awards programs.

Just when it seemed like Web awards were becoming more of a hindrance than a help for encouraging "Web excellence" on the Internet, natural evolution stepped in. The timing couldn't have been better.

Why not award the awards? Why not develop criteria whereby award programs could be objectively rated? Answers to these and other questions came when David Bancroft launched Award Sites! (AS!) in the Spring of 1997. While some award sites maintained links to other award programs, none made any distinction among them aside from alphabetical ordering. David not only provided a robust listing (with award graphics in some cases), he rated them as well! AS!'s primary purpose was:

This was no easy feat. The spectrum of Web awards was not only broad, many of their owners took themselves very seriously (even if no one else did). Words like "elite" and "prestigious" were frequently used by award sponsors as self-anointment. Maybe it was part of the gimmick to attract applicants, maybe it was a symptom of megalomania; either way, David started the movement to end the free-for-all use of these adjectives.

When word got out that award seekers respected Award Sites!'s ratings, award givers started wanting the highest AS! rating they could earn. Programs designated Level 5.0 were the ones who could justifiably say "elite" and "prestigious." The rest had to go sit in a corner and figure out what it would take to get "5.0". Inflated egos with low AS! ratings had their wakeup call or went into denial.

Even Level 4.5 and 4.0 awards became instantly popular and well respected by award seekers. Also, those who could earn the higher-rated awards had something tangible for their résumés and portfolios. This was particularly important as the "dot-com" boom was underway. Those with recognized, top-award-winning sites were getting the attention of businesses desiring exceptional Web presence. Since there were no formal educational programs giving diplomas for Web publishing, this was the next best thing for many an employer. Top-rated awards were now not only "elite" and "prestigious," they were also "make my career" awards.

At the other end of the Web awards spectrum were the "giveaway" awards. These "junk" awards could be "won" by anyone who knew how to save them to their hard drive. They had one simple purpose: to get as many people as possible to link to their sites. (This would be short-term thinking until the search engines started changing their algorithms to account for "link popularity" at the end of the decade.)

Of course, success breeds success and, in August 1998, Website Awards was born. Created by Don Chisholm, Website Awards offered a "condensed" list of quality award programs. Don even allowed other sites to host his free Website Awards Worksheet. The practical value of Don's worksheet to track award submissions, coupled with his online persona and generosity, proved to be a winning combination that was hard to beat. Don's worksheets were added to, or linked by, numerous award programs -- which not only promoted award seeking, it increased community awareness as well.

At the same time, Don started a list of World's Top Awards (WTAs) based, in part, on the rating levels assigned by Award Sites!. Any program rated AS! Level 5.0 with awards designated WTA really had something to crow about.

The Web Awards Community now had benchmarks to call their own. Award givers either acknowledged or ignored them. This really didn't matter. What really mattered was that award seekers wanted the "best" Web awards. And it was this realization that many award givers could not ignore, even if they wanted to. Soon hundreds of award programs had been reviewed, rated and indexed by AS! and the awards world watched the WTA list like it was a stock index.

Nearly a year after its inception, Website Awards introduced Articles About Awards in August 1999. This series of articles by some of the foremost award-giving (and award-winning) persons on the planet presented views and insights as to what Web awards were all about. Over time, this series of original articles became a key resource for many aspiring award sponsors and evaluators.