The South African blog awards
Posted on 27. Jan, 2005 by Cassandra in Technology
Joblog has sparked a bit of a brainstorm with their disapproval of how the American’s have treated African blogs, by lumping Africa with the Middle East…of all places…in the 2005 Bloggies.
The answer to the unhappiness….the first ever homegrown SA blog awards.
The Aussies also seem to have shunned the yanks with their Australian blog awards. Their voting and nomination process is not as advanced, but it seems to get the job done.
Follow me now with the train of thought on this one. Probably the best way forward is to combine elements of the already successful US and Aussie systems:-
A blog is set up in the name of the South African blog awards. A logical set of catagories, appropriate to South Africa are agreed apon. The obvious breakdown would be:
Best overall South African blog
Best post on a South African blog
Best overseas South African blog
Best writing of a South African blog
Best political blog
Best photographic blog
Best new blog
Best food blog
Updated catagories:
Best SA sports blog
Best SA Tech blog
Best SA Environmental blog
Best SA lifestyle blog
Best designed blog
In this year’s awards, a "weblog" is a page with dated entries. The contest is open to any weblogs that existed for a period of time during the year 2004, so weblogs that were discontinued during 2004 are also eligible.
Nominations:
Nominations for weblogs will be done via email. Only one nomination form may be submitted per person. E-mail addresses are required for this reason, and you must use your own address. If you resubmit a ballot, your old one will be erased.
In the nomination phase: URLs are required. The maximum number of weblogs you may nominate for a category is three for most categories and four for Weblog of the Year. At least three different weblogs total must be nominated. You may nominate your own weblog, but the total nominations for your own weblog must be less than one third of your total (legitimate) nominations. There is no limit to the number of categories a weblog may be nominated for.
Nominees have to fit the category they are placed in.
Voting:
To avoid trouble and to make things fair, voters will have to register themselves before the voting process begins. This will be done via email.
Once registered, voters can then cast their ballots for the nominated blogs over a predetermined timeframe. After manual counting and recheck and several visits to the Supreme court…the winners will be announced.
Updated:
Actually….once blogs have been nominated, the voting will take place via an online pole supported by Bravenet.com.
The prize giving will be held in Cape Town at the Po Na Na Souk Bar in Heritage square…a small gathering with big heart. Similar to the Bloggies the winner of the overall catagory will receive 2005 South African cents and the recognition as the king or queen for the year.
Should you wish to donate a prize which is better than the huge purse on offer for any one of the catagories…this is allowed. Just as long as you’re not the brand manager of Vodacom and you want to hijack the awards…this will be deemed inappropriate.
Martin…hopefully you can design us a nice logo which will add an element of prestige to the awards.
This is totally open to debate….hate it, love it…change something?
26 Responses to “The South African blog awards”
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Don
27. Jan, 2005
Sweet!
Laurence Caromba
27. Jan, 2005
Sending in an email to vote sounds like a bit of a bother. Wouldn’t it be easier to just set up an online poll, like in the bloggies?
Shaun
27. Jan, 2005
Great idea – but an online poll sounds better – and less shlep!
Shaun
27. Jan, 2005
Oh, sorry, what about other categories – such as Environmental or Sports etc?
Loxon
27. Jan, 2005
I think some more categories could do: Science, Environmental, IT…
Cherryflava
27. Jan, 2005
Ok…investigated an online pole from Bravenet.com, which should work well.
More catagories….
Best SA sports blog
Best SA Tech blog
Best SA Environmental blog
Obviously if there are no valid nominees for these then the voting catagory will fall away.
Anybody keen to design a logo for the awards, please feel free to brainstorm some ideas and email them to cherryflava@gmail.com.
Will post them up for comment.
MikEnDruk
27. Jan, 2005
Great idea.
And what about a Best Cat Blogger? You know, they always make fun of us kitty bloggers – we need some recognition too ….
“They” being:
http://mindofmog.net/archives/2004/08/16/sisu-cat-blogger-extraordinary/
http://weblog.burningbird.net/archives/2003/02/04/ahhh-factor-test
http://abbie.blogspot.com/
http://allied.blogspot.com/2002/11/cat-nap.html
http://sisu.typepad.com/sisu/2004/08/this_was_a_real.html
http://teflsmiler.typepad.com/weblog/2004/10/know_your_place.html
…. etcetera, ad nauseaum.
Gareth
27. Jan, 2005
Great idea, CherryFlava! Sending my nominations now…
Daniel Levi
27. Jan, 2005
What about best lifestyle blog? sites like that Cape town atlantic seaboard trendoid site http://www.2oceansvibe.com for example.
Cherryflava
27. Jan, 2005
Good suggestion….2oceansvibe.com-type blogs added.
Gareth
27. Jan, 2005
What is the nomination email address or are categories still being decided on?
Brian
27. Jan, 2005
Way to go Cherryflava…where’s the Middle East ? Is it between the Upper East and the Lower East ?
Cherryflava
28. Jan, 2005
Catagories are still being sorted out….will let you know when we’re ready for the nominations.
Jonty
28. Jan, 2005
Great idea guys, about time too. When are we opening for business?
Chris Roper
28. Jan, 2005
This is a great idea. If you need help with a voting engine, pop me a mail. I’d be keen to link to your awards from MWEB Blogs as well.
Martin
28. Jan, 2005
Logo draft coming sometime during the weekend.
How about we do a release on Biz-Community to promote this? I think a single release is in the region of R500 – we can club together, or the Jo’Blog dudes can sell one of the mags on their limo?
Cherryflava
28. Jan, 2005
Thanks Martin
I’m sure Biz-community will do us a favour for free if we’re nice to them. I’ll get my people to talk to their people and see what we can do.
lor
29. Jan, 2005
brilliant idea!
if you need any help with web design/development – drop me a line!
Laurence Caromba
29. Jan, 2005
“The prize giving will be held in Cape Town at the Po Na Na Souk Bar in Heritage square…a small gathering with big heart. Similar to the Bloggies the winner of the overall catagory will receive 2005 South African cents and the recognition as the king or queen for the year.”
No fair! What about us Gauteng people?
Rich...!
29. Jan, 2005
We’re actually about to buy some biz-com ad space, so I’ll ask em to be nice to us and publicise this…!
daniel
29. Jan, 2005
How about a music related blog award?
Laurence Caromba
30. Jan, 2005
Also, what about “personal blogs”? I think that the vast majority of SA blogs probably fit into that category. Or do those fall under “lifestyle blogs”?
Martin
30. Jan, 2005
Guys, I think we should take it easy with the categories… I know people hate being squeezed into categories that they feel aren’t *perfect* for them, but too many categories spoil the broth.
I remember when racing mountain bikes many years ago (something which was also just starting back then), they added all sorts of “intermediate” categories, spreading the few riders that there were thinly – getting an award in a category with 3 entries can look a bit silly…
Uwe
30. Jan, 2005
I think that these blog awards will be brilliant!!! I can’t wait. Where do I sign up? Where, huh? Where?
Aquila
31. Jan, 2005
Fab idea. Just let me know where to sign up…
Cherryflava
31. Jan, 2005
And we’re up and running….check out:
http://sablogawards.typepad.com/2005_south_african_blog_a/