If this year's Ellie category of General Excellence Online were analogous to Best Picture nominees from this year's Oscars, then "we're the No Country For Old Men of the group," according to Chow.com editor-in-chief Jane Goldman. Why, exactly?

"We're lean, mean, and we have an independent spirit," she told us by phone an hour after her Web site was announced as one of the nominees for a 2008 Ellie Award. "What do people say at the Academy Awards when they get nominated: 'What amazing company,'" Goldman said.

NewYorker.com, RunnersWorld.com, Slate.com, and Babble.com will be duking it out with San Francisco-based, CNET-owned Chow.com on May 1 at the National Magazine Awards here in Manhattan. Given that, per ASME's own description, the General Excellence Online category "recognizes outstanding magazine Web sites, as well as online-only magazines that feature original content," and nominated sites must "create a unique magazine environment on the Web," we asked Goldman whether she thought her once-print, now online-only outlet had any advantage over competitors with a magazine-mirroring online presence [we're looking at you, New Yorker.] "Truthfully, I don't know if [entirely] original online content carries more weight with the judges," she said. "Our online product is quite different than what the print mag was."

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