It’s been 12 years since the Webby Awards, which honors excellence on the internet, recognized a profound shift from desktop to mobile devices as a means of accessing the web, adding Mobile Sites & Apps as a new category type. This year, it acknowledges another prominent technology on the rise: Voice. We’re excited the 23rd Annual Webby Awards now includes a suite of ten new categories, just for voice.

With over 100 million Alexa-enabled devices in homes and businesses around the world, the inclusion of voice in the Webbys is an exciting and energizing milestone. It illustrates the increasing popularity of voice and further underscores the enormous opportunities available to developers to create engaging voice-first experiences in everything from games and entertainment to productivity and business and beyond.

Of course, we’re always excited to spotlight the Alexa developers who are using voice to innovate and build new experiences for customers. Today, we want to acknowledge the Alexa skills and congratulate their developers who’ve earned nominations for a Webby Award in one or more of the new voice categories.

We encourage you to explore all of the nominated skills, then head over to the Webby Awards People’s Voice before April 18 to cast your vote for the very best of the internet. The winners will be announced on April 23.

And the Categories Are…

The Webbys added a number of General Voice categories for voice use cases and voice-enabled devices. Each category provides different types of information, interactions, or services, all of which use voice as a primary engagement point:

Business & Finance – Provide information or services for banking, stock trading, news, mortgages, credit cards, insurance, and more.

Education & Reference - Designed to encourage education and learning.

Food & Drink – Includes recipes, shopping lists, delivery, and more for just about any food and beverage you can think of.

Games & Entertainment – Needs no explanation and could be just about any type of voice-first game.

Health, Fitness & Lifestyle – Promote health, fitness, and wellness of body, mind or both, such as fitness tracking, meditation, and a variety of self-help.

News – Deliver news and information services of all types.

Productivity – Boost personal or workplace productivity, including appointment schedulers and list makers to workflows, exercise trackers, and more.

In addition, skills and voice-enabled devices can be nominated and win in the following Voice Features categories:

Best User Experience – Exceptional usability and functionality.

Best Writing – Excellent writing for voice experiences.

Technical Achievement – Incorporating new, innovative technology to set a new or higher industry standard for user experience.

Meet the Alexa Skill Developers Nominated for a Webby

Out of hundreds of entries in these new Voice categories, we’re happy to share the Alexa skills that received nominations for best-in-category by the Webby Academy.

The Webby Academy selected five nominees in each category they felt demonstrated outstanding achievement. All nominees and honorary mentions receive a framed certificate and website badge. But the winners will receive a coveted Webby Statuette and plenty of well-deserved prestige and recognition from their peers and the industry.

Without further ado and in alphabetical order, here are the Alexa skills nominated for these prestigious awards:

Alexa Lifeline by VML, Sydney, Australia

Nominated for: Productivity, Best User Experience

Alexa Lifeline allows women in abusive relationships to secretly text a friend for help without the abuser knowing or even suspecting the communication.

ALIEN: Offworld Colony Simulator by 20th Century Fox, Vice

Nominated for: Technical Achievement

The Offworld Colony Simulator is a turn-based exploration game that challenges you to escape from the sectors of a locked down Weyland-Yutani Space Colony.

Al Jazeera by Al Jazeera, Your World / Spoken Layer

Nominated for: News

For stories that don’t pop up in your typical news feed, Al Jazeera offers a fresh perspective on Your World.

Assassin’s Creed® Odyssey Spartan by Ubisoft

Nominated for: Games & Entertainment

The official skill of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Alexios is designed to be the ultimate tool for life at home and in the game world.

BBC Good Food by Immediate Media Co.

Nominated for: Food & Drink, Best User Experience

Simple step-by-step recipes for 11,000 triple-tested recipes searchable by ingredients, dishes, diet types, time required, difficulty, cuisine, and more.

BBC Kids by BBC Media Applications Technologies Limited

Nominated for: Best User Experience

Kids can listen to stories read by special guests, play games, and sing along to some of their favorite songs, with characters from the popular CBeebies show.

CNBC by NBCUniversal Media, LLC

Nominated for: Business & Finance

Get the latest business news, real-time financial information, and market quotes, so you can track investments throughout the day.

The Bar by Diageo

Nominated for: Food & Drink

The Bar is your own personal bartender. Just say “Alexa, open The Bar” to get yourself mixing, learning, and experimenting with friends in your kitchen.

Harvard Business Review: Management Tip by Harvard Business Review

Nominated for: Business & Finance

Quick, practical management advice to help you do your job better, delivered weekdays via a flash briefing. This is the audio version of Harvard Business Review’s email newsletter.

Headspace: Guided Meditation for Everybody by Headspace

Nominated for: Health, Fitness & Lifestyle

Headspace is meditation and mindfulness made simple. Get a new guided meditation every day, plus a sleep exercise to help you wind down.

Jeopardy! by Sony Pictures Television

Nominated for: Games & Entertainment

Did you know that every Jeopardy! category has an “extra” 6th clue? With a single command, test your knowledge with new clues every weekday and more.

Jurassic World Revealed by Universal Studios Interactive

Nominated for: Best Writing

Visit Isla Nublar with podcaster Janet Best to report on the dinosaurs’ fate in this premium interactive audio adventure from Universal and Earplay.

Make Me Smart by Marketplace

Nominated for: Business & Finance, Education & Reference

Marketplace hosts Kai Ryssdal and Molly Wood tell you what you need to know about the economy, pop culture, tech, and current events in this daily skill.

Men’s Health Minute by Hearst / SpokenLayer

Nominated for: Health, Fitness & Lifestyle

Men's Health Minute provides the latest in fitness, nutrition, health, sex, style, grooming, tech, weight loss, and more.

Mr. Robot: Daily Five/Nine by NBCUniversal Media, LLC

Nominated for: Games & Entertainment, Best Writing

A mind-bending, interactive story game inspired by the appearance of Amazon Echo in USA Network’s Golden Globe® and Emmy®-winning series MR. ROBOT.

Sleep Sounds by Invoked Apps LLC

Nominated for: Health, Fitness & Lifestyle

Sleep Sounds plays calming sound loops to help you fall asleep faster, sleep better, relax, meditate, or drown out distracting noises.

Song Quiz by Volley, Inc.

Nominated for: Games & Entertainment

Play solo or against friends, family or music fans across the country to guess the correct title and artist for thousands of songs by artists from the past 60 years!

Suggest a Beer by Dabble Lab

Nominated for: Food & Drink

Alexa can suggest a beer from more that 5,000 American brewed craft and specialty beers, or even make a local suggestion by state.

True or False? by labworks.io ltd

Nominated for: Education & Reference

This is a fun game to test your trivia knowledge about the world by answering either "true" or "false." The rules are simple, but the questions aren’t.

Westworld: The Maze by HBO

Nominated for: Best User Experience

Move through Westworld on 60 possible paths to consciousness, with show sound effects and storylines and over 2 hours of unique gameplay.

Try the Skills and Vote in the Webby People’s Choice

Voting is now open for the 23rd Annual Webby Awards! And you can help determine the final winners. Until April 18, you can vote for the skills nominated in each voice category in the Webby Awards People’s Choice. Check out all these Alexa skills to find out why the Webby Academy rated them as some of the best voice experiences. Then cast your vote!