International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences

About IADAS

The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS) was founded in 1998 in New York to help drive the progress of the Internet and evolving forms of new media. The academy selects the nominees and winners for the Webby Awards.

The Webby Awards is an international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile web sites, presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences since 1996. There is also a second set of awards called the People's Voice Awards for the same categories which are given by popular vote.

The phrase The Webby Awards was used from 1994-1996 by the World Wide Web Organization, which was first introduced in 1994 by WebMagic, Cisco Systems and ADX Kentrox. As one of its services, it sponsored "the monthly Webby awards to spotlight online innovation. Web.org was decommissioned in 1997.

The phrase The Webby Awards has been used since 1996 to describe an annual awards ceremony. It was initially sponsored by The Web magazine which was published by IDG, and produced by Tiffany Shlain. Winners were selected by a group which would officially become the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS) in 1998. After The Web Magazine closed, the ceremonies continued.

In 2006, The Webby Awards launched three new award programs including categories honoring interactive advertising, mobile content, and the Webby Film and Video Awards, which honors original film and video premiering on the Internet. In 2008, the 12th Annual Webby Awards received nearly 10,000 entries from over 60 countries worldwide.

2008-08-12