IWNY2010

Last night the famous and the web-famous gathered at Cipriani Wall St. for the 2010 Webby Awards, honoring the best in new media.

WebNewser was there, and was tweeting the whole night. In case you weren’t following our witty tweeting of the night’s events, here is what happened:

The awards kicked off with an “I Love the 90′s” style montage reviweing the year in viral videos. From the two-year-old smoker to Fox 5 anchor Ernie Anastos “Keep f*ckin that chicken,” the Webbys had the best videos covered.

The night featured dozens of awards to companies and individuals. As always, winners were limited to a strict five-word acceptance speech.

In our opinion, the biggest winner of the night was former Apollo astronaut and the second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin. WebNewser spoke to Aldrin at the Webby cocktail hour, where he showed off his Buzz Aldrin iPhone app. Aldrin, who turned 80 in January, was still showing off his app and mingling with the crowd at the Webby after-party hours later.

At the awards themselves, Aldrin received the biggest ovation of anyone as he accepted for NASA. He continued to push for manned exploration of the galaxy in his speech: “Humanity. Colonization. Phobos. Monolith. Mars!”

Throughout the night special achievement awards were presented, with celebrities serving as guest presenters.

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Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.

Last night IAC hosted a star-studded launch party for DumbDumb, a production company from actors Will Arnett and Jason Bateman. DumbDumb is being backed by Electus, the IAC-supported company run by former NBC entertainment chief Ben Silverman.

“Obviously the name DumbDumb says a lot about the guys who started this company,” Silverman said when introducing Arnett and Bateman at the party.

“I wish you had listed some of our credits,” quipped Arnett, following Silverman’s introduction. “We didn’t really know what this thing was going to be, and it turned out to be a really great relationship.”

Arnett, Bateman and Silverman (using a cane because of an undisclosed injury) introduced the company to the crowd, and premiered the first short.

Wrigley gum brand Orbit is the first sponsor to sign on to DumbDumb, and is featured prominently in the shorts.

WebNewser also spoke to comedian Zach Galifianakis, who introduced himself to guests as “Zach from Zachgalifianakis.com,” fitting for an IAC party, and fellow “Hangover” actor and star of the upcoming “A-Team” movie Bradley Cooper.

Other guests included Arnett’s wife and “Parke and Recreation” star Amy Poehler, actress Amanda Peet, actor Justin Long, “Inside the Actors Studio” host James Lipton, Actress Renee Zellweger, actress Kristin Bell, Comedian Chuck Nice and “30 Rock’s Katrina Bowden.

The first short from DumbDumb, “The Prom Date,” is after the jump.

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mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby continues making the rounds during this Internet Week New York. Tuesday night, she headed to three parties: the mediabistro.com party on the West Side, the Webutante Ball at Marquee and the fifth anniversary party for blip.tv at the Metropolitan Stages. What do the “stars” of blip.tv think of blip.tv? Watch:

Last night Gawker.tv and Internet Week 2010 hosted the 2010 Webutante Ball. Media types and webutantes of all sorts were herded into Meatpacking District staple Marquee for drinks, dancing and general debauchery. The event climaxed with awards for the “Webutante King,” “Webutante Queen,” “Most Likely to Succeed” and the “Fameball Hall of Fame.”

Mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby was there, and took the photo above of the crowd. In fact, the real belle of the ball should have been the iPhones, Flipcams and other recording devices, which got heavy use that night. Ordinary media people taking photos and video of other media people.

Or as Laurel put it:

“10 years later and we are all just in a room taking pictures of each other.”

She also noted that Josh Harris, a veteran of the first dot com boom and the subject of the documentary “We Live in Public,” was sitting in a corner, by himself.

In 1999, Harris put 150 human guinea pigs in an underground abode in New York City, recording everything they did, 24 hours a day. He later broadcast his relationship with his girlfriend live online, eventually leading to their break-up

Maybe it was too much too take, even for him.

Video of the flashbulb-heavy affair is after the jump.

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mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby is making the rounds this week covering New York’s Internet Week. Monday night she was at Gracie Mansion for the Made in New York event put on by the Mayor’s Office of Film Theater and Broadcasting. Are these Web entrepreneurs bullish on the future? Watch:

AOL brands like Engadget and Aol Music could be expanding to new websites and products, according to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong.

WebNewser was there at Armstrong’s Q&A at IAB Innovation Days, part of Internet Week 2010.

At the event, Armstrong said that the company is reorganizing its content divisions into networks and “super-networks” that will make it easier to sell to advertisers, and grow some of the company’s marquee brands.

“At Aol have hundreds of consumer-facing URLs or brands, and what we see in the future is the opportunity to create very large brands that turn into super-networks,” Armstrong said. “So you take something like an Engadget, which has lot of readership, a lot of focus and a lot of brand credibility, The Engadget brand has the opportunity to become a super network.”

Engadget already has a mobile-focused site, an HD-focused site and the recently launched Engadget Alt, but Aol’s new strategy could see the brand expanding into other areas of the tech space. The goal is to put together a network of sites with a common audience, which would make it easy to sell them as a group to advertisers.

Armstrong also addressed the rumors that Aol was talking to Microsoft about an acquisition.

“Aol is not for sale,” he said, though he left the door open to a possible partnership with the company. “We are not talking to Microsoft about selling the company, that has never been the case. As a matter of fact I think Aol will be a net acquirer, not necessarily of Microsoft, but of other companies.”

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Sister blog PRNewser has a report from today’s Mashable Summit. CollegeHumor.com co-founder Ricky Van Veen gives his 10 myths of web content, 10 pieces of advice for anyone looking to get into the web content game.

Last night, The Hollywood Reporter held its annual Digital Power 50 event at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. In addition to honoring 50 power players from new and traditional media, David Eun, president of AOL media and studios, sat down for a discussion with Andrew Wallenstein, THR’s editor of digital media.

Eun says that the new, content-centric Aol (he calls the company a “startaround”) produces 80% of its content in-house… but it is in the market for content partners.

“Aol has to double down on partnerships,” Eun said. “We do produce 80% of our content in-house, but we don’t assume that all the good experiences and all the good content can be produced in one place, and it is around this room [referring to the media executives attending the event].”

Eun also said that newspapers, many of which are fighting for their existence in the light of declining ad revenue, are perfect examples of traditional media companies Aol is looking to reach out to.

“We want to partner with newspapers,” Eun said.

The Aol exec recalled his first meeting with Aol CEO Tim Armstrong, who he worked with at Google. Armstrong was tasked with finding a way to turn around the media giant’s fortunes.

“The vision that he laid out for me about AOL was super compelling,” Eun recalled. “He said ‘we need to turn around AOL, and I want to make content the pivot point.’”

And while much of that content is produced in-house by blogs like Engadget and Daily Finance, he says one of the biggest opportunies for growth will come from those content partnerships.

“The scale of what Aol is, while still a shadow of its former self, is still pretty significant,” Eun said. “From the perspective of a company that interacts with lots of consumers, there are interesting ways that we can partner with different content producers, different people that provide products and services, to create a deeper, engaging experience for folks that want to engage with us.”

Thrillist.com is making a mobile play, launching a new iPhone application. The announcement was made during Internet Week 2010 in New York City.

The app is designed to serve as a city guide, providing users recommendations on good places to eat, drink and shop. It will take advantage of Thrillist’s library of content to deliver a wide selection of information. Content is organized by the most popular, newest and nearest places.

The app also features extensive social networking integration, with built-in Foursquare check-in capability, as well as Facebook and Twitter integration.

Also on tap in the app: mini-games, and the ability for users to save favorite places to their Thrillist.com accounts.

The app covers most of Thrillist’s cities, including Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C, with more launching in the fall.

The app can be downloaded from Apple’s app store here.

Yes, Internet Week is getting started here in sunny New York City, and WebNewser will be there to cover it.

From the parties to the panels, and everything in between, keep checking in here and at our sister blogs for the latest.

You can also follow us on Twitter: @webnewser, and @alexweprin.