Gore to Get Lifetime Award for Internet

[Harry]

Al Gore may have been lampooned for taking credit in the Internet's development, but organizers of the Webby Awards for online achievements don't find it funny at all.

In part to ''set the record straight,'' they will give Gore a lifetime achievement award for three decades of contributions to the Internet, said Tiffany Shlain, the awards' founder and chairwoman.

''It's just one of those instances someone did amazing work for three decades as congressman, senator and vice president and it got spun around into this political mess,'' Shlain said.

Vint Cerf, undisputedly one of the Internet's key inventors, will give Gore the award at a June 6 ceremony in New York.

''He is indeed due some thanks and consideration for his early contributions,'' Cerf said.

Gore, who boasted in a CNN interview he ''took the initiative in creating the Internet,'' was only 21 when the Internet was born out of a Pentagon project.

But after joining Congress eight years later, he promoted high-speed telecommunications for economic growth and supported funding increases for the then-fledging network, according to the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which presents the annual awards.

He popularized the term ''information superhighway'' as vice president.

 

[DomainEngineer]

He deserves it 100%.

 

[fatter]

They should also give him a blue ribbon for one of the few canidates in US history who won the popular vote and lost the election, while I didnt vote for him he is looked down upon when what he did was a big accomplishment
"moved to political forum"

 

[DaddyHalbucks]

I'd be interested to know more about this history, Gore's actual role in developing the internet.

What I remember most about Al Gore is his inaction in 1998/ 99 when he was Clinton's lap dog, and showed absolutely no leadership at all in challenging Bill Clinton's abuses of power as President.

 

[Sarcle]

I'm just glad that Gore designed and started the web, what a jackass...... I am of no party affiliation but when you state something like that come on.....you are going to lose to know matter who you run against...

 

[Anthony Ng]

What I remember most about Al Gore is his inaction in 1998/ 99 when he was Clinton's lap dog, and showed absolutely no leadership at all in challenging Bill Clinton's abuses of power as President.

I'm actually more impressed by his unimpressiveness (lack of charisma), his modest speaking skills (comparable to George W. Bush), and his delayed and calculated criticism of Bill Clinton which cost him the votes from the Left that could have made him the president.

Having said that, he well deserves the award, esp. if you remember many people at that level (those honourable congressmen and senators) still depend on paper (memos prepared by their aides, who also carry their Blackberry) and seldom put their own hands on a computer themselves.

 

[domaindirk]

I do not agree with a lot of his ideas. But, I admire his service to this country and congratulate him on his award.

 

[Harry]

Winners Announced For "The Oscars Of The Internet"

http://www.webbyawards.com/index.php

 

[jberryhill]

I'm just glad that Gore designed and started the web, what a jackass...... I am of no party affiliation but when you state something like that come on...

He didn't claim that he "designed and started the web", nor did he claim he "invented the internet". However, if it had not been for his leadership in creating the current legal basis on which the internet operates, it would have died out as an ARPA project that had outrun its usefulness.

Odd that the inventors of the TCP/IP Protocol, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, disagree with you:

http://www.politechbot.com/p-01394.html

As a Senator in the 1980s Gore urged government agencies to consolidate what at the time were several dozen different and unconnected networks into an “Interagency Network.” Working in a bi-partisan manner with officials in Ronald Reagan and George Bush’s administrations, Gore secured the passage of the High Performance Computing and Communications Act in 1991. This “Gore Act” supported the National Research and Education Network (NREN) initiative that became one of the major vehicles for the spread of the Internet beyond the field of computer science.

But the idea that a government project had any useful impact cuts against the religious doctrines of some people, so they have to distort what was said by Gore, and the underlying truth.