An email from Jon Cherry I thought I should share:
The 2008 South African Blog Awards is scheduled for its annual process of nominating and voting in February and March. The awards team would like to publicly present this year’s process to all interested parties on Wednesday 23 January at 17h30 on the outside deck of Cafe Neo in Mouille Point, Cape Town.
Anyone with an interest in how this year’s awards will work is more than welcome to attend. Please note that this is your opportunity to voice your input about the awards process. We’re doing this in order to finalise the system in a public forum.
If you cannot make the presentation and feel strongly about the awards format, please arrange for representation to be there to express your opinion.
 I’ve accepted the invitation from Jon and the volunteer organizing committee to be the “Independent Awards liaison”. In other words, if you have any issues with the way the awards are being handled then post your comments on my blog and I will take it up with the committee.
I’m not otherwise involved in organizing the awards, so please spare your vitriol. Also, by accepting this responsibility I’m not in the running for any awards (and neither are any of the organizing committee people).
Hey Dave, no chance I’m getting to the cape at this stage. I told one blogger to go along and represent all those people who “blog for fun” or whatever category it is we fall into. But if she is too slack, can you suggest from me:
A category on “life” or “creative writing” or “random life insights”. I don’t think “humour” properly covers this form of blogging.
Personally, I’d love a “social awareness” category, but considering the number of such blogs, I think I might have a fair lead this year (although they are starting finally).
Also, they need to consider THOUGHT LEADER, cause if those guys also get nominated, many of us hacking pseudo-writers are screwed. Not a bad thing. But there go my iPod chances. Again.
Hi Dave,
I’ve been asked to represent a few people myself, but can’t attend tonight either.
As a ‘life writer’ blogger representative, please could I extend a request to you to put it forward that the littlies get thought of too, “not just the geeks and marketers” as one of my readers put it.
Champs!
Slack, my ass! Look what I already did for you, you chop:P
Also, please can they specify this year what a “new” blog is. I’d suggest that it is one that was started in 2007.
Sorry…no…I don’t have anything better to do this afternoon. Thanks for listening!
Lol. Thanks for the input Champs and Sheena. I’ll represent you proudly this evening.
So, the points I’ll be raising:
* Consider blogs outside of “the usual suspects”
* I’ll propose the new categories that you suggested
* Consider blog communities such as Thought Leader
* Clear definitions around what qualifies a blog for a particular category – e.g. “best new blog” should have been started in 2007. (ps. I laughed when I was runner up for “best new blog” last year because I started this blog in 2005!
Am dying to hear how it went, Dave – let us know!
Hey Sheena! It was interesting…
The system this year is based on votes alone – which obviously favors the blogs with better traffic.
So I raised you concern about the smaller blogs getting acknowledgement (cos sometimes they’re great and just haven’t been noticed yet) and the committee suggested adding a new category called “best ‘undiscovered’ blog” – they propose to ask the winners from last year to find these blogs and put them forward, so there’s a list that people can look at and choose from.
A further proposed addition as a result (and one I think will be hilarious) is worst SA blog! (hehe, this could be a contentious).
The proposed solution to people just voting for the same blog hundreds of times, or automating votes to their blog is that each vote needs to come with a justification – which will also provide some good feedback/testimonials for the nominees:)
Blog communities like Thought Leader and 24.com blogs are definitely in the running.
They will also very clearly stipulate what qualifies a blog for a particular category.
Champs, they’ve included a category for “best Green blog” – I proposed that they extend the category to “Best Social Awareness Blog” or “Best Social Upliftment Blog” or the like. I think this may be a successful proposition.
I’ve asked Jon Cherry to send me the minutes of the meeting so I can summarize them and post them here.
What you think?
Wow, it sounds fabulous!
Worst blog could be a disaster though… I can’t think of anyone who would take it lightly! Oh shame.
Minutes will be good. I’ve subscribed to your feeds so will be back
Thanks for standing up for us.
I’m so new to this website… well a few months old really, so this whole blogging awards thing is very new! I’d like to find out more about it…Thanks
Hey BB, it’s an award established a few years ago to recognize blogs, and to raise the profile of blogging in SA. Basically, you go to http://www.sablogawards.com/ and submit the blog that you like. You should also encourage your readers to vote for your blog if you’d like to be in it.
I don’t think there are going to be prizes this year, but the winners generally get lots of traffic, and even some mainstream media recognition, and of course a cool badge to display on your site to let everyone know about it!
Thanks for popping by:)
Sheesh, didn’t even know we had such a thing as the SA Blog Awards. Good on the guys who’re organising and running it.