Only three weeks and a couple of days after receiving the National Scholastic Press Association’s (NSPA) Online Pacemaker Award, members of The Paly Voice woke up Tuesday, May 3, as Webby Award winners.

That was when the ninth annual international Webby competition, considered the "Oscars of the Internet" by publications such as the New York Times and Time magazine, announced its winners in 60 categories. The Voice, which won the "Student" category, joins the list of winners including web sites run by large corporations such as Merck, Kellogg, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), and Google.

Winners will be recognized at a special banquet in New York City on June 6. The event will be hosted by "The Daily Show with John Stewart" correspondent Rob Corddry. Winners are only allowed a five word acceptance speech. The short speeches save time for the special awards, including the Webby Lifetime Achievement Award to be given to former Vice President Al Gore. Presenting the award to the Vice President will be Vint Cerf, credited by most for inventing the internet.

Along with the Webby award, the Voice also snatched up a People’s Voice award. A compliment to the Webby, the People’s Voice award is selected by the public. According to a press release distributed by the Webby organization, the Voice is one of only 13 out of the 60 winners who won both the Webby and the People’s Voice award. Over 200,000 votes were cast this year from an open international audience to select the People’s Voice winners.

"The reason we are able to be a successful program is because of the phenomenal community which we live in." Junior Nathan Lui, editor-in-chief-elect, said. "Here in Palo Alto, we have great schools, great students, and a just plain awesome community,"
The two latest awards are an addition to the Pacemaker award the Voice won only weeks earlier. The Pacemaker was awarded at the annual NSPA convention in Seattle, in mid-April. Given to the top three online high school journalism Web Sites, the award is considered by many the most prestigious award of its type. This is the second year in a row that the Voice has won the Pacemaker. They were a finalist in 2003, the year the site first opened its doors.

The Voice has seen record number of visitors since the news of the awards. Over 20,000 "unique" visitors, from over 100 countries, viewed the site in April for a total of just under 30,000 visits, making the Voice the most circulated and most widely distributed publication in the school. The spike continued in early May and through May 13, the site had already received 17,000 visits, on pace to break its own record, set just one month earlier.