Obama, Clinton pay tribute to Steve Jobs at the Webbys
Celebrities, politicians and tech luminaries paid tribute to late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs at today's Webby Awards show in New York.
Nearly a dozen celebrities, politicians and tech luminaries paid tribute to late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs at today's annual Webby awards show.
A video featuring President Barack Obama, former president Bill Clinton and others expressing admiration for Jobs, who died last October, was shown to attendees and streamed over the Web.
Also making appearances were U2 frontman Bono, Star Wars creator George Lucas, former U.S. vice president (and current Apple board member) Al Gore, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, comedians Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Fallon, as well as Web mogul Adriana Huffington, and computer scientist Vint Cerf.
Actors John Hodgman and Justin Long, who played the characters of PC and Mac respectively during one of Apple's most famous and long-running ad campaigns, introduced the video tribute. The video was also preceeded with an individual tribute from actor Richard Dreyfuss, who narrated Apple's "Think Different" ad (and more recently the CNET dramatic reading of the iTunes EULA). Dreyfuss summed up Jobs' life in five words, saying the inventor was the "exception that proves the rule."
President Obama went for a slightly shorter version: "The truth is when we are talking about Steve Jobs, we only need one word: amazing."
The tribute is the latest for Jobs, who was posthumously awarded a Grammy for his contributions to the music industry in February. The same month, Jobs was also honored during the "In Memoriam" montage during the 84th annual Academy Awards ceremony. Apple, for its part, put on a private celebration of Jobs' life at its campus last year.
You can see a full version of the video below: