MPA Digital Conference: The Awards Ceremony Live Blog

Awards emcee Mignon Fogarty of Grammar Girl, pre-presentation

2:16:: Web site of the year, news & social topics/business & finance — Time.com. The redesign worked. Also, why is the title so ridiculously long?

2:14:: Web site of the year, sports — SI.com. Group publisher Terry McDonald, hosed before, is allowed to give a speech this time.

2:13:: Web site of the year, service/lifestyle — NYmag.com. And we don’t have to wait until May for a sweep.

2:12:: Web site of the year, fashion/beauty — Style.com. Beating out Instyle.com and ShopVogue.tv because people don’t want to watch what they can’t afford.

2:10:: Web site of the year, entertainment — People.com. “People digital &#151 the largest nonprofit entertainment Web site in the world.”

2:08:: Best podcast series — NewYorker.com’s Fiction Podcast. Speech read from a moleskin journal. How literary.

2:07:: Best mobile strategy — Bicycling‘s GPS Rides Tool. First joke of the speeches: “Sorry it took me so long to get up here, I was lost without my GPS.” For the record, we are clapping for not only the winner, but also the second and third place winners. It’s like elementary school.

2:05:: Magazine blog of the year — NYmag.com’s Daily Intel. What, is this the Ellies?

2:03:: Best Web-only tool — National Geographic “Your Shot Jigsaw Puzzles.” NG‘s editorial director is the first person allowed to give a speech. It’s brief.

2:02:: Best video series — Newsweek.com’s Voices of the Fallen.

2:00:: Best online community — SI’s Fan Nation. Major upset as Condé’s MyEpi.com takes second.

1:59:: Best online video, stand alone — Slate’s “Justice Scalia Joins 24.” Short clip of the video. Slate’s Bill Snee accepts award. Not allowed to give speech.

1:57: Fogarty has a part-time assistant to answer her “hundreds of emails a month.” We get hundreds of emails every six hours. We get our own coffee too.

1:52: Mignon Fogarty, today’s presenter, talks about the importance of being brutal about sticking to format in an conference that’s running 45 minutes late.

1:51: People came to learn about the Internet clap for microphones working.

1:49: Lunch, which was “Better than last year,” according to Hearst VP of digital media, Chris Johnson, is ovah. Let the awards begin.

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