The Shorty Awards, an annual crowdsourced contest that honors talented social media users and Internet celebrities, tallied more than 1.8 million nominations last year that people submitted via tweets for individual people or companies.
In 2014, for the the first time, producers are letting the public also vote for specific content such as selfies, GIFs, memes, Instagram videos, Kickstarter projects and more. As with all categories, people cast votes using nominees' Twitter handles and hashtags, like so:
"Awarding excellence on a medium that changes every year is like living on the Galapagos Islands -- it requires constant evolution," Greg Galant, cofounder and executive producer of the Shorty Awards, told Mashable. "For the 6th Annual Shortys we're giving awards for things that didn't even exist a year ago like Vines and Instagram videos."
Here are the new content categories for the Shorty Awards this year:
GIF of the Year
Instagram Video of the Year
Kickstarter of the Year
Newsworthy Photo of the Year
Tumblr of the Year
Amazon Review of the Year
Meme of the Year
Selfie of the Year
Vine of the Year
Popular vote determines winners in some categories, while others are judged by the Real-Time Academy of Short-Form Arts & Sciences, which includes actor Charlie Sheen, actress Alyssa Milano, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, among others.
Past big-name winners include Ricky Gervais, Conan O'Brien and NASA.
The ceremony, which is onApril 7 at the TimesCenter in New York City, will celebrate the winners in various topics (politics, entertainment, pop culture, activism, government, technology, news, media, etc.) for their work on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, Foursquare and other social networks.
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BONUS: 16 Legendary Selfies of 2013
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