We like to change things up a bit every year, and this year is no exception. We have a few new rules and new categories, so listen up!
Rules
Like we stated before, we lifted that “you can’t nominate your own blog” rule. Now, blog owners can easily nominate their own blog through our simple process. When you’ve completed it, you will receive a unique link for your blog that will allow other to vote for you for the finalist round!
Next up, we’ve changed the duration of the Awards just a bit. Nominations this year start on June 20 and end on July 25, which will give you plenty of time to get your nomination in AND have people vote for them. Finalist voting has also been lengthened, and now runs the entire month of August. Winners are announced on September 4.
There’s also a new rule out there for those repeat winners. Blogs that have won a particular category at least three times are no longer eligible to win for that particular category. This includes blogs that have won either the Judges’ and/or Popular vote for their category. We’ll go into more detail about this, since several categories have changed names over the years.
Categories
Based on growing demand, we have added the following four categories for this year:
- Best Health and Wellness Blog
- Best Microblog
- Best Parenting and Family Blog
- Best Sex and Relationships Blog
Unfortunately, we do have to say goodbye to the following categories based on decreasing activity:
- Best Blog Community
- Best Celebrity Blog
- Best Fictional Blog
Categories always come and go, and we’re always gauging category popularity based on demand and user activity; we’re always taking suggestions on new categories, so feel free to speak up (just don’t demand it).
That’s what’s new for this year! Nominations end on July 25.
Welcome to the new Black Weblog Awards website! Head on over to either the categories or rules pages for more information.
You can also catch us online at Twitter and Facebook (we have a fan page and a group) for more information or to talk about the Awards.
Here are a few of the changes with this new site:
- Better integrated blog: The blog has always been available, but it’s been tucked off in the navigation. And if we’re the Black Weblog Awards, why not go ahead and put our blog front and center? The Black Weblog Awards blog is now better integrated on the front page of the site so you can easily check out what’s going on with the Awards as well as other news. We plan to have guest authors from time to time from some of the leading voices in the Black blogosphere.
- New nominating/voting system: We finally decided to lift that “you can’t nominate yourself” restriction from the rules. Blog owners can now nominate themselves in any of our categories through our new process. They are given a unique nomination link they can use to get their readers to vote for them in their nominated categories up until July 24. Then, we’ll take the top five nominated blogs in each category and those will be the finalists. Beginning August 1, you’ll be able to vote for finalists in those categories, and finalist voting will wrap up on August 31. (Yep, you get the whole month to vote for the finalists.) Winners will be announced on September 4.
As we keep building and growing out the Black Weblog Awards, we’ll keep you informed of what’s going on via the blog, so stay tuned!
Thanks to everyone who took time out to complete our survey! As we work to improve and grow the Awards, it’s important for us to know more about you so we can offer you better services! This week, for those of you who opted in on the survey, we’ll send the first issue of the Black Weblog Awards Newsletter, which will have information about the Awards, some history behind it, and, well, why don’t you tell us what you’d like to see? Just leave a comment here.
As promised, we have selected a winner at random from all the survey participants to win an ASUS Eee PC 1000HE 10″ Netbook, courtesy of 3eighteen media. Using the random number generator at Random.org, the winner is Dominique Mosley!
Congratulations Dominique! We will contact you soon for more details. Thanks again to everyone who filled out our survey!
New year…new president…can’t you smell the hope in the air? Can’t you feel the change? Can’t you taste the future?
No? Well hopefully those aren’t flu-like symptoms.
2009 is ramping up to be the best year ever for the Black Weblog Awards. (Yes, we say that every year…and we mean it too!) We’re working on a new temp site just in time for this year’s SXSW, and we anticipate the new full site launch near the end of Q2 just in time for the Awards. There are quite a few surprises this year that should help make this year’s Awards one for the record books.
Feel free to follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook fan page. Stay tuned!
Now that we’re ramping up the behind the scenes workings here at Black Weblog Awards HQ, we wanted to do a little survey to learn more about our faithful users. For taking the time out of your day to help, everyone who supplies their e-mail address when they fill out the survey is eligible to win a free ASUS Eee PC 1000HE 10″ Netbook, courtesy of 3eighteen media.
These little netbooks are all the rage nowadays, and this particular model is ready to go out of the box with a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N280 processor, 1 GB RAM, a 160 GB hard drive, 10 GB of Eee Storage, Bluetooth, and a 9.5 hour battery life.
Click here to take the survey. We’ll close the survey and draw for a winner on April 4, 2009, so don’t delay! No purchase necessary, of course. The survey only takes a few minutes to complete. Through the survey, you can also opt-in to receive our new Black Weblog Awards newsletter, which we’ll start delivering in early April.
