And The Award Goes To...

After 7,000+ nominations and 1800+ votes for our 91 finalists, here are the winners of the 2007 Black Weblog Awards.

Unique to this year was the addition of our panel of ten judges, authorities in the fields of blogging, design, the Internet and good writing. Each category has two winners: a popular vote (the ones which you, the users, casted your ballots for) and the judges' vote (the top ranked picks from our judges).

Winners are listed after the break.



Best Blog Community
Popular Vote: Young, Black and Fabulous
Judges' Vote: Nappturality


Best Blog Design
Popular Vote: Young, Black and Fabulous
Judges' Vote: Clutch Magazine

Best Blog Post or Blog Post Series
Popular Vote: "Who Killed Hip-Hop? On Some JFK Shit..."
Judges' Vote: "What About Our Daughters Wins Battle!!!"

Best Business Blog
Popular Vote: Black In Business
Judges' Vote: Black In Business

Best Celebrity Blog
Popular Vote: Tyra Banks
Judges' Vote: ?uestlove

Best Culture Blog
Popular Vote: Young, Black and Fabulous
Judges' Vote: Afrobella

Best Faith-Based Blog
Popular Vote: Are You There God? It's Me, Dawn
Judges' Vote: The Infidel Guy Show

Best Fictional Blog
Popular Vote: Fake Janice Combs
Judges' Vote: Life and Times of Ata Nafia...a (not) true story

Best Food Blog
Popular Vote: A Lot About Nothing
Judges' Vote: TriniGourmet.com

Best Gossip Blog
Popular Vote: Young, Black and Fabulous
Judges' Vote: Young, Black and Fabulous

Best Group Blog
Popular Vote: Concrete Loop
Judges' Vote: Racialicious

Best Hip-Hop Blog
Popular Vote: Real Talk NY
Judges' Vote: The Smoking Section

Best Humor Blog
Popular Vote: Crunk & Disorderly
Judges' Vote: Funky Brown Chick

Best International Blog
Popular Vote: Black Women in Europe
Judges' Vote: Black Women in Europe

Best LGBT Blog
Popular Vote: Keith Boykin
Judges' Vote: Keith Boykin

Best Music Blog
Popular Vote: Real Talk NY
Judges' Vote: HoneySoul.com

Best New Blog
Popular Vote: Blogxilla.com
Judges' Vote: Stereohyped

Best Niche Blog
Popular Vote: Afrobella
Judges' Vote: Fly

Best Personal Blog
Popular Vote: The Beautiful Struggler
Judges' Vote: InTheLifeOf.org

Best Photo Blog
Popular Vote: The D-Nice Journal
Judges' Vote: Alakija.com | photoblog

Best Podcast
Popular Vote: HoodHype
Judges' Vote: Friday Favecast

Best Political/News Blog
Popular Vote: The Field Negro
Judges' Vote: Jack and Jill Politics

Best Science/Technology Blog
Popular Vote: Nerd With Swag
Judges' Vote: Tiffany B. Brown

Best Sports/Recreation Blog
Popular Vote: The Starting Five
Judges' Vote: The Starting Five

Best Teen Blog
Popular Vote: My Teenage Years
Judges' Vote: Queer Kid of Color

Best Video Blog
Popular Vote: Love B. Scott
Judges' Vote: Ill Doctrine

Best Writing in a Blog
Popular Vote: Young, Black and Fabulous
Judges' Vote: Blackprof.com

Black Blogger Achievement Award
Popular Vote: Keith Boykin
Judges' Vote: Baratunde Thurston

Blog of the Year
Popular Vote: Young, Black and Fabulous
Judges' Vote: What About Our Daughters?

Blog to Watch
Popular Vote: Real Talk NY
Judges' Vote: AverageBro


I'm sure there will be a lot of discussion about the winners, so feel free to leave a constructive comment below. No "this person should've won" type comments, please. You can also join our Google Group to get in on the discussions for future installments of the Awards.

Winners, please contact us via our contact form in order to receive your winners' graphic(s).

See you in 2008!

Comments

[Adrianne]

Wow! I am so honored to have won in the Best international Blog category! Thank you readers and judges! I am truly blessed to be able to share this honor with the other winners. Can you send me the "badge" to post?!?! Yipee!

[Bill Cammack]

Congrats to all the winners! :D

[Muze]

just want to say thanks to the judges for picking my blog for Best Fictional....man you guys are smart! lol.

[afrobella]

WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am so happy. And flattered. And honored! Thank you!! Is there a special winners badge we can post?

[Gina McCauley]

Oh my goodness. I didn't even know I was nominated! hahahaha. Wow, I am less than six months old and I won an award. Thank y'all so much. I don't do the blog for the recognition, but it still feels nice to be appreciated

[Sister Toldja]

Yaaaaaaay!!!!! I am so honored and excited!!!!! Thanks to all who voted and congrats to the other winners!!!!

Please send a badge to sister.toldja@gmail.com so I can show my momma'nem.

[afrobella » I Won!!]

[...] You’re reading the words of an official Black Weblog Award winner!!!! [...]

[Bronze Trinity]

OMG so many people I voted for won! I nominated WhatAboutOurDaughters for blog of the year and the judges chose it! OMG I wrote the judges vote for best blog entry! This is awesome! Congratulations to everyone. This was a lot of fun!

[Fave]

This is cool...this is really, really cool. Congratulations to everyone who won, was a finalist and nominated. It's about the BLACK EXPERIENCE on the WEB! U gotta love it.

Please forward my badge to me...Thanks!

[me]

How come for best celebrity the judges voted a blog that wasn't even nominated?

[me]

Who are the ten judges?

[I’m a Winner! | A Lot Ab]

[...] 2007 Black Weblog Awards are over for this year, and I’d like to thank each and every one of you who voted for me! [...]

[BWA Admin]

@"me": I would have replied directly, but you provided a fake e-mail address. To answer your questions though:

1. The judges made their picks from all the blogs nominated in each category, not just the finalists. As you'll see, many of the judges' picks are not the same as the popular vote finalists.

2. I think it's up to the judges whether or not they want to reveal themselves; we haven't divulged their identity in order to protect them from any unwarranted harassment (because I know I've received some crazy mail, and I don't want to subject them to that).

[NerdwithSwag.com » Blog]

[...] good looking out on all of your parts. To check out the rest of the winners, head over to the official blog of the Black Weblog [...]

[me]

according to the rules on this site:

"As an added bonus to this year's Awards, each category will have two winners."

kinda weird that the same person wins twice in one category.

[Bronze Trinity]

I don't think its weird to have two winners. Its better to have people vote but sometimes people just vote for their friends or for someone popular. Maybe the judges looked more at quality to decide. It would be worse if it was just judges because then we wouldn't have a say.

[BlogXilla]

Yeah!! Man Best New Blog.... Read my joints people... Some Think I'm over confident... but my scribes are monstrous.... Yall Know BX bout to blow like nintendo Cartridges

[me]

I agree Bronze which is why im pointing out some of the categories dont have two winners. That is what I think its weird because like you said friends would just vote for popular people. I thought if someone won the popular vote they wouldnt be the judges vote because it said "each category will have two winners.” Just an observation.

[Mo-Mo]

The "As an added bonus to this year's Awards, each category will have two winners" may seem a bit subjective, but it does make sense when a category has the same winner for both voting choices: 1 winner for the public vote and 1 winner for the judges vote for each category = 2 winners... but the rules didn't distinctly say that the 2 winners of each category MUST be different blogs.

That in a sense would be unfair, especially if there's a really good blog out there that the judges would deem a winner (based on a lot deeper criteria than most of the general voting public), but had to demote because the voting public also liked that blog and thought it merited a win. I think the way the 2-winner category decisions were made this year were done as best they could.

[j. brotherlove]

I was one of the judges for this year's Black Weblog Awards.

I can see how "me" is getting tripped up by the wording of the rules. It should read more like "...each category will be awarded a popular award and a judges' award".

The fact that some blogs won both the popular vote and the judges' vote shows how successful those blogs are achieving their goal. Every blog that won an award was submitted by the public. We were not allowed to "write in" any choices.

After wading through over 7,000 nominations, I'm proud of the judges' picks even though some of the blogs I chose didn't win. That's the nature of voting. I wrote http://www.thebrotherlove.com/bloggadocio/judging_black_weblog_awards_winners.php" rel="nofollow">more on my blog.

[Dwil]

Thank you voters and judges for voting The Starting Five the best sports blog.
We get jacked by biters and haters quite regularly. We've been "blacklisted" (pun intended) by Deadspin and The Big Lead. I've been called a race-baiter and received death threats and other sundry hate mail.....

But recognition like this makes it all worthwhile....

Thanks again.

peace,
-DWil
The Starting Five

[RealTalkNY]

Interesting, won three popular votes and 0 from the judges. The one the bothers me is the Blog To Watch, how can that blog be picked over mine?

[Spotes Notes, 9.06.07: We Won;]

[...] am happy to announce that TSF won the Black Weblog Award for Best Sports Blog. We are both the voters and the judge’s choice, which means we swept the [...]

[BlogXilla]

Interesting, won three popular votes and 0 from the judges. The one the bothers me is the Blog To Watch, how can that blog be picked over mine?

My whole thing was I thought the judges were going to pick out of the finalist, not everyone else. but I'm glad they had the judges b/c w/o them it's really became a popularity contest. Take best blog design for instance. I was up against Concrete Loop, and YBF, they are everywhere from BET, To the Vibe, to the boston globe. I had no chance of winning the popular vote in that category. So that really doesn't prove anything. I mean even You have your blog powered or apart of the Rawkus.

[me]

::The fact that some blogs won both the popular vote and the judges’ vote shows how successful those blogs are achieving their goal::

Not really. If there were three finalists obviously those three deserved to be finalists so all three of those blogs were successful. The judges choosing the popular votes too makesit feel like even more of a popularity contest. What is the benefit of winning twice in the same category? Will their badge say "two-timer winner in one category." The rules said TWO winners and was said as a "bonus" so it all just seems weird but that is just me.