The Webby Awards, the leading international award for internet greatness, has a sweet Winner’s Gallery.

The gallery was designed as a fun and interactive way to see all of the Nominees and Winners from the 12th Annual Webby Awards and includes links to the work and the ability to filter entries a number of ways. For instance, the “trends” filter shows entries with the top 7 tags entered by users during the People’s Voice voting. And the “Winner Type” tab allows you to select from Webby Winners, People’s Voice Winners and Nominees.

Insuring the Aging American Population is priority ONE!

“Robots are everywhere and they eat old people’s medicine for fuel.”

For those who don’t “get it,” I have two practical and personal case studies that shed light on the speed, reliability and benefits of social networks:

Case Study No. 1 // Earthquake – Friday morning (April 18), shortly before 4:40 a.m., my wife and I suddenly awoke to our entire house shaking! The walls, bed and dressers were all rattling and continued to shake for a good five seconds after I was fully awake.

I quickly turned on the alarm clock radio, which was set to WGN 720 AM.

No news.

Being from the Chicago suburbs where tornadoes are the natural disaster of Mother Nature’s choice, I never suspected earthquake, so I leaped out of bed and circled the house looking for what caused the shaking. I thought the house was about to blow up!

By 4:50 a.m., I was in front of my computer checking news sites. Still nothing. I turned on WGN’s streaming radio and still nothing. I remembered Matt Dickman’s Micromedia presentation and how he referenced the quick Twitter responses to the Minnesota bridge collapse, so I checked Twitter, a free social networking and micro-blogging service. So, I checked Twitter.

Sure enough… the first message I read was from a St. Louis user who exclaimed EARTHQUAKE!?

A quick search found dozens of Twitter messages already posted about the earthquake - the first I could find was from @safetyguy1656 at 4:40 a.m. CST, only three minutes after the quake was officially documented by the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

Adding reliability, many of the twitter posts (”tweets”) included links to the United States Geological Survey website with information about a then-reported 5.4 magnitude tremor (later confirmed 5.2). My wife and I were both glued to Twitter for the next 20 minutes, exchanging messages with fellow members to get the latest info and “eye witness” reports. here are what some of the messages looked like:

As we read Twitter, WGN finally reported the quake. Twitter had scooped Chicago’s “superstation”… and by nearly 10 minutes! According to fellow Twitterer (a Twit?) @badgergravling, Twitter and Wikipedia had scooped mainstream media (MSM) for a recent UK earthquake, Heath Ledger, etc. And, according to Matt Dickman, Twitter announced the Minnesota bridge collapse almost 45 minutes before MSM.

Thanks to the instant emergency information gratification of Twitter, I’m hooked.

Case Study No. 2 // Tricia – A few weeks ago, my family was shocked to hear that my sister, Tricia, was diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer. We knew it was serious when the doctors immediately scheduled her for bilateral mastectomy surgery.

With no history of cancer, this hit Tricia and our entire family hard… and with absolutely no warning. Needless to say, it was and still is very scary.

Days after the diagnosis, friends and family asked how they could help. With Tricia’s permission, I created 4tricia.com to give people ideas and help raise a few extra dollars to offset the giant costs associated with battling breast cancer (i.e., medical expenses related to surgery, hospital care, doctors visits, prescriptions as well as wigs/headwraps, travel, lost work time, etc.). As a blog, 4tricia.com also serves as a therapeutic writing outlet for Tricia to share her progress and feelings.

With the family in a state of emergency, I asked Tricia if she wanted me to share her story with my network of blogger friends. I explained it would reach thousands of altruistic people around the globe. She agreed as she thought it was more important to share her story and raise awareness than keep private. Plus, the fact that it hit a young, 30-something with no family history of cancer may help open some eyes and push people get get more regular check-ups.

Two days before Tricia’s double mastectomy, I sent out a distress signal via toddand.com and a personal email to several friends and family.

“I’m asking for your thoughts and prayers this weekend,” I said. “And if you have a dollar or two to spare, your contributions would be greatly (greatly) appreciated.”

I posted the message and sent the email just around midnight, just before I went to bed. When I woke up six hours later, the signal had been heard by many and echoed across Twitter and several other blogs.

Within 10 hours of launching the website and sending an email, we had 10 donations.

Within 72 hours, we had more than 60 contributors and about $6,000 had been raised! Donation amounts ranged from $5 to $500!

The prayers, well-wishes and donations came from all over the world – Australia, Iceland, Belgium, England, Canada and across the United States.

What made this outpouring of support unique and so completely amazing to my entire family was that 1) it was so unbelievably quick and generous, and 2) it came from people we had never met face to face. I explained to my family that, by blogging, I am part of a close-knit community of like-minded professionals who are willing to help fellow bloggers at a moment’s notice.

Thank you to those who quickly wrote about or pointed to Tricia’s website and helped raise prayers and dollars: Todd Defren, Kami Huyse, Shannon Whitley, Connie Reece, Melissa, Scott Baradell, Leo Bottary, Drew McLellan, Kristie Wells, Gavin Heaton, Steve Woodruff, Susan Reynolds, Lani Anglin-Rosales, Joel Postman, Karl Long, Karen Swim, Dan Mosqueda, Brendan Cooper, Sally Whittle, Brian Solis, Scott Monty, Douglas Karr, Bob Mertz, etc.

As Tricia said in an update post, “Your unending prayers, words of support and encouragement, and generosity are what keep me going and have touched me in a way words cannot express. To simply say ‘thank you’ doesn’t seem like near enough.”

While my family probably still doesn’t fully comprehend social networking and blogs, they are now completely aware of the power and responsiveness of the community. Whereas before my parents would have likely just smiled-off any mention of “blogging,” now their ears perk up with keen interest at any mention of the word. For instance, my dad recently clipped and gave me a magazine article about blogging.

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To incentivize the 4tricia.com fundraising (which clearly wasn’t needed), I said I’d raffle off four prizes to those who donated more than $1 in the first week. Those winners are: Leigh Householder (Power 150 t-shirt), Scott Baradell (4tricia t-shirt), Merredith Branscombe (Power 150 pen) and Brendan Cooper ($25 iTunes gift card). Please email me your snail mail addresses and I’ll get the prizes in the mail asap. Thanks!

What two blogs do you read most often?
This is an insanely difficult question. Adliterate and Servants of Chaos, but there are like 10 I read at the same frequency: Hee Haw Marketing, Get Shouty, Communities Dominate Brands, Mind Hacks, Punk Planning, Pan-dan, Johnnie Moore, Own Your Brand, Leigh’s Blitherings, The Digital Perm

Which blogger would you most like to meet in person?
Richard Huntington (Adliterate)

Which blogger would you least like to run into in a dark alley?
Katie Chatfield (Get Shouty)

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