The nominees are out for the first International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV) awards. Final voting for the awards begins today and will continue up to Jan. 5, then, the winners will be announced on Thursday, Jan. 12 at the 2012 International CES. There is a great host of categories including live or taped shows, individual performances and many with a separate comedy or drama distinction.
What makes these awards stand out are a few unique categories: Best Supplemental Content, Best Distribution Platform, and Visionary Award. I'm a huge fan of special features and bonus content, so awards for supplemental content are great, especially since the web allows for a lot of creativity with such bonuses. The distribution platforms for Web video are incredibly important since it is an area where innovation will be quickly noticed by the general audience and advertisers and marketers have been looking for years for thebest way to do business with the Internet.
The Visionary Award is really the heart of the IAWTV and shows their value of advancing web television. What's Trending with Shira Lazar is both a nominee and responsible for hosting the presentation of the awards. There is a lot of great video to be seen gathered here at these awards, including the long running machinima Red vs. Blue. The IAWTV is a nonprofit organization that focuses on the education and appreciation for Web video and it is open for new members to join.
Anyone is welcome, and with these inaugural awards there's sure to be many more that join the academy. Take a look at the nominees and you should be able to find something worth watching, and who knows, maybe you'll be ready to participate in future award ceremonies. I for one, am looking forward to checking out a few of the hundreds of nominees and reporting the winners of this year's awards.
