Jimmy Fallon, Trent Reznor, Twitter honoured with Webby awards

Jimmy Fallon's late-night show has been on the air less than three months but has already earned him an award. The comedian was chosen as person of the year by the annual Webby awards for being "one of the most ardent online evangelists."

The 13th annual Webbys were announced Tuesday.

Since Late Night With Jimmy Fallon began in early March, the comedian has augmented his NBC broadcast with Web videos, blogging and Twitter posts.

Webby organizers also presented a special achievement award to Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, who released his 2008 album, The Slip, as a free download.

Reznor's online fervor was evident Sunday, when he posted in a Nine Inch Nails forum that he was frustrated with what he called Apple's inconsistent standards. He criticized the company for not making the band's album The Downward Spiral available on its iPhone app even though it's for sale on iTunes.

National Public Radio won in the most categories, earning seven awards, including wins for its music division, mobile news and podcasts. The New York Times online unit — last year's Webby leader — received six awards, the same number as NBC.com.

Twitter, the fast-growing microblogging site, won the Webby for breakout of the year.

Seth MacFarlane, creator of the animated series Family Guy, was honored as film and video person of the year for his Web franchise Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy.

Two well-known comedians were also singled out. Sarah Silverman was honored as best actress for her performance in the viral video I'm F---ing Matt Damon and for the The Great Schlep, her contribution to a U.S. presidential race voting initiative. Lisa Kudrow won for outstanding comedic performance as the star of the series Web Therapy on Lstudio.com.

The Onion won for best humor Web site and its television news parody, Onion News Network, won for best writing. The Huffington Post  won for best political Web site.

Best individual comedy short went to Prop 8: The Musical, a video from the site FunnyOrDie.com, co-founded by the Will Ferrell. The star-studded video (Jack Black, Neil Patrick Harris) suggested that gay marriage (which was then being voted on in California as part of Proposition 8) would save the economy.

Best comedy series went to Childrens' Hospital, the medical drama parody for the thewb.com site by Rob Corddry (formerly of The Daily Show).

PBS won four Webbys, including best news and politics series for its Frontline/World iWitness. Others with multiple awards included the BBC, Sundance Channel, YouTube Live, Next New Networks and Wired.com.

The awards will be presented in New York on June 8, hosted by comedian Seth Meyers of Saturday Night Live's popular "Weekend Update" segment.

The Webbys are known for their brief acceptance speeches, where winners are limited to five words. (Stephen Colbert, a special achievement winner last year, accepted his award with the words: "Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.")

The Webbys are presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member group of Web experts. Every category has two winners: one picked by the Webbys and the other chosen through online voting. Since the first Webbys were awarded in 1997, the number of categories has grown from 15 to more than 100.

Fees for entering the competition range from $150 US to $295 US.