NYConvergence ORIGINAL

Two metro-area Twitter users took home awards last night at the Second Annual Shorty Awards, Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker, who won a Shorty Award in the "Government" category, and Sesame Street, which tied for an award in the "Best Brand" category.  Sesame Street's award was accepted on the television show's behalf by Grover, who began "reading" a list of 140 fictional characters until the evening's host, CNN's Rick Sanchez, cut him short as he was over the 140-character limit for his acceptance speech.  The ceremony was held at The Times Center, located in Manhattan's Times Square neighborhood and video is available on Livestream here.

The Shorty Awards, which were first held last year at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood during NYC's Social Media Week, aim to honor "the best people and organizations on Twitter."  In addition to voting by tweet, members of the recently-formed Real-Time Academy of Short Form Arts & Sciences also had a hand in selecting the winners although that role wasn't clarified.  Local members of the Academy include radio host Kurt Anderson, Hunch's Caterina Fake, The New York Times' David Pogue, and Columbia Journalism School's Sree Sreenivasan.

A full list of the winners is available online here.