Social networks Google+ and Pinterest and the music service Spotify each grabbed their first Webby Awards in the 16th edition of the competition for the top internet sites.

The Icelandic singer Bjork and Mexican-American comic Louis CK also were honored for their innovations in the digital realm by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, the online equivalent of the Oscars.

Facebook was named the winner of the first People’s Special Achievement for Social Change, topping Twitter, YouTube, Kiva, and Change.org for the award for using the internet for social and political development.

Academy judges including Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Arianna Huffington and mobile phone inventor Martin Cooper selected Webby Award winners while internet voters around the world chose the People’s Voice Awards with nearly 1.5 million votes cast from over 200 countries.

The Webby for best news site went to The Daily Beast while the BBC won the People’s Voice award in the category.

FactCheck.org won for best political website while the satirical news site The Onion took the Webby for best humour site.

Pinterest, the fast-growing bulletin board social network, won the Webby for social media and Google+ won the People’s Voice Webby in the category.

The winners, listed on http://wbby.co/winner , will be honored at a ceremony at The Hammerstein Ballroom in New York on May 21.

“This year’s winners represent an amazing cross-section of the new and continuing trends we’ve seen across the internet this year,” said David-Michel Davies, executive director of the Webby Awards.

Agency of the Year honours, highlighting the agency that wins the most overall Webby Awards went to BBH (Bartle Bogle Hegarty), the London-based creative firm which won nine awards.