• by December 13, 2004

Our friend David Smith, CEO of Mediasmith in San Francisco, today alerts us to the winners of the ASPY awards. The ASPYs are the creation of the Aspen Group, an informal association of interactive media directors, strategists, planners, and buyers who convene at iMedia Summits. The awards, announced at the iMedia Summit in Scottsdale, Ariz. last week, were created to acknowledge the work of ad sales organizations.

The winners of the second annual ASPY awards are a diverse bunch. CBS MarketWatch nabbed the ASPY for Best Overall Web Site Representation. Finalists in this category included Forbes.com, Yahoo!, and MSN. Advertising.com scored an ASPY for Best Advertiser Customer Service, ESPN.com won for Most Creative Ad Product Solutions, and AOL earned an ASPY for Most Improved Advertiser Relations.

The 2003 winners included The New York Times on the Web, Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.

Now the Minute would be remiss if we didn't put in a plug for MEDIA magazine's awards. The January issue of the magazine will honor interactive agencies, the bright lights in the industry. We are throwing a big party in their honor during the second week of January and look forward to seeing many of you there. In addition, we are preparing to salute our favorite online publishers in the February magazine.

After an entire fall of awards, contests, and celebrations, a new season of brilliant work is about to begin. We hope you're ready.