Webby Awards Sprung on R/GA, Hyperfactory and Countless Others

Webby AwardsNow everyone will finally take down those annoying "Vote for me" notices they have helpfully posted to Twitter feeds, Facebook statuses, and IM away messages. The Webby Awards, now in its 13th year, today announced the winners of its coil-y spring-looking trophy thingee (it's no OMMA cube, if we say so ourselves -- now that is an award that could do a man bodily harm).

This is the first year that the Webbys have recognized an Agency of the Year, and the inaugural prize goes to R/GA -- which was selected because it won a total of eight Webby categories, including best B2C Rich Media for Nike SPARQ (which also won a People's Voice Award, so let's hear it for the annoying messages), Best Retail for NIKEiD and Best Game or Application for Nike Football Head2Head (the judges also seem to like Nike).

Other big winners include New Zealand's Hyperfactory (with six awards); Goodby Silverstein & Partners (took three); Wieden + Kennedy, Grow Interactive, the Atmosphere and Clemenger offices of BBDO, and Razorfish (all nabbed two). Of the big four, Omnicom and Interpublic tied with eight awards each, followed by Publicis with three wins.

Twitter won Breakout of the Year -- but, like all winners, when Biz Stone accepts his award in New York on June 8, he'll be limited to five words instead of the 140 characters he's used to.

The Webbys are presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which is not to be confused with the Academy of Arts and Sciences, but this doesn't mean Hugh Jackman won't one day be host. This year, however, SNL's Seth Meyers has hosting duties. Some of the members of the "Academy" who are responsible for judging this year's 10,000 entrants: Vinton Cerf, Matt Groening, Arianna Huffington (whose HuffPo took the People's Voice for Best Political Blog), Harvey Weinstein, Alex Bogusky, Betawave's Matt Freeman, AKQA's Rei Inamoto, and Ogilvy & Mather's Annie Wong.

The full list of winners can be found here .

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