Webbys will honor Stephen Colbert, Lorne Michaels, David Byrne

The Webby Awards have picked out some big names to honor for their web-wise contributions at this year's ceremony.

David Byrne, Lorne Michaels, Stephen Colbert, Michele Gondry, along with will.i.am, and Tim & Eric, will receive special achievement awards for the different ways they've brought focus and energy to online entertainment. 

Michaels gets the honor, in part for "Lazy Sunday," one of the first really viral YouTube videos (recall that NBC had it yanked for copyright reasons, but looks like the Webbys are giving Lorne a pass on that). Gondry has always been Web friendly -- from his weird Rubik's cube video series to his latest movie, "Be Kind Rewind," which uses a low-budge Web video aesthetic. Colbert, the Webby person of the year, is being honored for his creative string of Web-based self-promotions. Says the Webbysite, Colbert has done it all ...

... from Google bombing to make him the top search result for "greatest living American" to challenging the "truthiness" of Wikipedia. In his presidential campaign, the "One Million Strong for Stephen T. Colbert" Facebook group attracted more than 78 members per minute in its first week, while his supporters have raised more than $250,000 for the education charity DonorsChoose.org.

This is obviously good marketing -- not only will the Webbys get attention from the TV, movie and music worlds, but the awards actually make sense. The entertainment landscape still comprises mostly people who haven't figured out "the Web thing" yet, so to spotlight a few who have is an all-around winner.