Held inSan Francisco's Masonic Center for a crowd of 3,000 invited guests, the2000 Webby Awards were widely considered the peak of theWebby Awards and a watershed ofdot-com party culture.^[1] The event took place May 11, 2000, shortly before many of the event's perennial nominees and participants sufferedbusiness failures in thedot com crash.^[2]

The attendant ceremony and surrounding events were described in the press as "Hollywood-style"^[3] and a "bacchanal.".^[2] Others complained that the event was too serious and less fun than in its earlier, freewheeling days, and was too much of a "corporate mixer."^[3]Alan Cumming was themaster of ceremonies. The theme wasThe Time Machine, from theH. G. Wells novel. Pre-awards entertainment included guest "fluffers" with feather dusters, fakepaparazzi who would excitedly take pictures of arriving guests, and dance troupes fromProject Bandaloop scaling andrappelling down the face of the theater building to Capacitor[1] delivering awards. Some nominees dressed up asastronauts carrying their corporate banners as flags, and in headdresses and silver metallic wigs. Google's representatives arrived in costume as they had the year before, rolling onstage ininline skates to accept their award.^[4]Guerrilla marketers from companies that did not get into the event stood on the sidewalk outside to attract attention.^[3]

The 27 award winners received a prize of $30,000 each, a first for the event. As in years past, award speeches were limited to five words.^[3] Presenters includedSandra Bernhard,John Perry Barlow,Mahir, andTina Brown. Among the new additions to the judging panel wereRobin Williams,David Bowie, andDeepak Chopra.^[3]

The afterparty took place in nearbyGrace Cathedral and inHuntington Park across the street, which had been covered with tents and served food and alcohol donated by restaurants throughout the city. Held on top ofNob Hill, one of the town's largest enclaves ofold money, the event took a year to plan and several months of permits. Despite extensive community outreach, and a promise by organizers to pay for restoration of the Fontana delle Tartarughe, a dilapidated fountain in the park as a goodwill gesture, some local residents were vocal in their resentment of the brashness of the Internet industry, and canvassed the neighborhood with protest leaflets.^[5]

Future award events were more somber. By the next year's event, one fifth of the 2000 nominees were out of business, and more than half of the winners had been sold, suffered layoffs, or failed.^[2] By 2002, there was not enough money available to pay for a live event.^[4]

This list isincomplete; you can help byadding missing items.(December 2014)

(fromhttp://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current.php?season=4)^{[permanent dead link]}

Winners and nominees are generally named according to the organization or website winning the award, although the recipient is, technically, theweb design firm or internal department that created the winning site and in the case ofcorporate websites, the designer's client. Web links are provided for informational purposes, both in the most recently availablearchive.org version before the awards ceremony and, where available, the current website. Many older websites no longer exist, are redirected, or have been substantially redesigned.

• Official website
• J. Betty Ray (June 2001)."Webby Awards". Noend Press. Archived fromthe original on August 13, 2001. - a first-person account of attending the 2000 Webby Awards.

• Webby Awards
• 2000 awards in the United States
• Dot-com bubble
• 2000s in economic history
• 2000 in San Francisco
• May 2000 in the United States
• 2000 in Internet culture

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