Internet.com announced the winner of its registration contest this week. Ruby De Bruyn, a channel sales team manager for China Telecom (Americas) won a new Toyota Prius Hybrid in a random drawing.

Internet.com, a network of Web sites for IT professionals, is owned by Jupitermedia (NASDAQ: JUPM), which also owns InternetNews.com.

DeBruyn came by the San Francisco office of Internet.com where she received a tour of the offices, chatted with some of the editors and picked up her new car. She said she'll be selling a ten-year-old Cadillac now that she has the Prius.

LtoR in front: Scott Bialous, group publisher of Internet.com; Ruby de Bruyn, Toyota Prius winner; Dave Needle, SF bureau chief, InternetNews.com; Rosalind Tan, Internet.com. In back are the Devx.com editors. Photo: Jack Hannen.

"I was thrilled to learn I'd won," said De Bruyn. As an Internet.com registered user, De Bruyn said she already was taking advantage of free white papers and other information at the site to make product recommendations, so winning the car was an extra bonus. "It's important to keep abreast of what's happening in the tech world, so Internet.com has really helped with that," she said. "It's also been a good source of sales leads for me."

China Telecom Americas, a wholly-owned US-based subsidiary of China Telecom Corp. Ltd. (NYSE: CHA), is an international telecom provider for Data, IP and Voice Wholesale services to multinational companies, organizations and international carriers requiring China domestic services and International access to China & Asia Pacific. De Bruyn recommends and implements enterprise-wide networking for her clients.

"On behalf of Internet.com, I'm pleased to congratulate Ms. De Bruyn," said Scott Bialous, vice president and group publisher of JupiterOnlineMedia. "This sweepstakes was a great way for us to reward our members for exploring the IT and Developer resources we offer on our network. We will continue to provide our visitors with fun and exciting promotions as our traffic and product expands."

Asked about the 2009 outlook for tech, De Bruyn said she's optimistic innovation will help overcome the downturn in the economy, much of which said is driven by fear. "Quality matters and I think companies with products and services of value will still do well. But we need to take the excess air of out of the system," she said.

De Bruyn said she thinks the next major tech advance will be in IPTV. "When mainstream meets the Internet and you have true IPTV that will be revolutionary," she said. "You'll be able to select any video you want at any time."