NOMINATIONS & VOTING

This year, nominations far surpassed last year’s totals, with 1,500+ ballots and 9,400+ nominations. Voting went smoothly using last year’s system of checking ballots by e-mail address and IP address, and we still received some of the same issues with people not being able to vote if they’re on a public connection. Now this is outlined in our FAQ, but this year’s complaints seemed to be a special mix of condescension and just outright foolishness. Now we do reply to every e-mail we send, particularly about voting issues, and always offer a solution (in the case of an error about voting from your computer, we ask for your IP address and gives you directions on how to do obtain it), but no one ever follows up! This year, no one sent us their IP address (we can easily open a backdoor for voting if IP address is an issue), so what do we do? We can’t help if you don’t help us, you know? We’ve researched ways other blog awards do their voting (most use time-based cookies or Flash polls or just don’t have public voting), and we think that our way is pretty fair, especially once you’ve had the time to go through the finalists and vote.

Which brings me to the voting. Lots of people expressed disinterest (and downright hatred) for having to vote for every category in order for their vote to be counted. Many said they did not (and would not) go through all the finalists and would just pick either whom they knew, or entirely at random. Given that the purpose of the Black Weblog Awards is to empower, encourage and recognize ALL black blogs out there, that’s why we include that rule. Granted, changing voter apathy is an arduous task, but I’d like to think there’s a lot of information we provide and a lot of new blogs outside of what you just may be familiar with and read from time to time. Hell, if we cut down the categories to the ones that only the majority of voters were interested, we’d be in the single digits. The fact that we still receive e-mails about new categories (some good, some obtuse) means that there’s more out there we’re not covering.

So here’s what we’re thinking about for next year (none of this is set in stone yet):

• Blog registration: Basically a blog registers itself with the BWAs, URL and all, and this becomes their official “nomination” ballot (this would strike out the whole “you can’t nominate yourself” rule). This would hopefully also squash all the “why wasn’t my site nominated” emails/rants/threats we receive, as well as offering some built in QA for the judges and voters.
• An increased nomination period: If we implement the new blog registration, then we may extend the nomination period by a few weeks.
• Lifting the global voting requirement: When we relaunch the site, we may have individual voting pages for each category. Again, this is tied to the new blog registration.
• New rules: If we implement these new features, of course, we’ll have to have new rules. Plus, coming up on the fifth year of the Awards, we are going to include a new rule for how many times a blog can win in a certain category. It was actually an original rule from 2005, but we waited to really implement it until a few Awards had passed.

PRIZES

Many thanks this year to Toby Morning of Blue Monitor; he donated prizes for the Best New Blog and Blog of the Year winners. For next year, I think we will cut out prizes altogether. While we had prize coordinators ready, we didn’t receive enough feedback and participation to utilize them this year. 2009 will probably be the last year we offer prizes, and again, it would depend on what kind of input we receive.

CATEGORIES

We’re thinking of cutting three to five categories for next year. I won’t mention which ones, but we’ve been keeping track of the popularity of the categories and looking at the ratio of individual category nominations to the full number of nominations, and there are a few on the chopping block. Based on input we’ve received though, we have at least three new categories to add. Ideally, we want the number of categories to remain at or near 30. But we have to weed out the ones which don’t get much crowd participation and replace them with ones that the people want and that we feel are relevant to the Black blogging community.

CONTESTS

This year’s contest for the new theme and look of the Awards went well. Wasn’t the new look and logo great? We will have another contest for next year’s theme, so be on the lookout for that coming up in the next few months. Of course, we are looking for quality (see this year’s theme for the caliber we’re looking for), so all you artists and graphic designers get ready. We may have some other contests in the future as well.

THE FUTURE

As always, we welcome all suggestions, so register for our forum (where most of the discussions will take place) and let your voice be heard! Change is in the air, and here at the Black Weblog Awards, it’s no different. Your input is important to us.

So again, thanks to the winners, thanks to our judges, thanks to our programmer Markus and Black Web 2.0, our logo/theme designer winner Shirley B., and thanks to you, the people, for helping to make the Black Weblog Awards even better for this year.

After conferencing with the available judges, a new winner has been selected — SheGeeks. The finalist list has been updated to reflect the change. Thank you for your support.

Without further ado, the winners are listed after the break.

Best Blog Community

Popular Vote: The Urban Blogger
Judges’ Vote: Blackfolk

Best Blog Design

Popular Vote: Young, Black and Fabulous
Judges’ Vote: SoulBounce

Best Blog Post or Blog Post Series

Popular Vote: The Black Snob - “The Associated Press Totally Steals My Black Conservatives On Obama Story”
Judges’ Vote: We Are Respectable Negroes - “What if? White in America – The Never to be Made Television Documentary”

Best Business Blog

Popular Vote: Young Black Professional Guide
Judges’ Vote: Buzzology Surveys

Best Celebrity Blog

Popular Vote: Kanyé West
Judges’ Vote: Shaun Robinson

Best Culture Blog

Popular Vote: Afrobella
Judges’ Vote: The Liberator Magazine

Best Faith-Based Blog

Popular Vote: Gospel Fab
Judges’ Vote: The Infidel Guy Show

Best Fictional Blog

Popular Vote: The Li’l Creole Pimp Chronicles
Judges’ Vote: Welcome to Buena Beach

Best Food Blog

Popular Vote: Everyday Cooking
Judges’ Vote: NYAM

Best Gossip Blog

Popular Vote: Young, Black and Fabulous
Judges’ Vote: Bossip.com

Best Group Blog

Popular Vote: Concrete Loop
Judges’ Vote: Jack & Jill Politics

Best Hip-Hop Blog

Popular Vote: SOHH.com
Judges’ Vote: Nah Right

Best Humor Blog

Popular Vote: Crunk + Disorderly
Judges’ Vote: Yeah…I Said It!

Best International Blog

Popular Vote: That Grape Juice
Judges’ Vote: Scribbles from the Den

Best LGBT Blog

Popular Vote: Pam’s House Blend
Judges’ Vote: Living Out Loud With Darian

Best Music Blog

Popular Vote: SoulBounce
Judges’ Vote: SoulBounce

Best New Blog

Popular Vote: Keeping Up With The Huxtables
Judges’ Vote: Gureala

Best Personal Blog

Popular Vote: The Beautiful Struggler: Me, Myself An Eye
Judges’ Vote: JNez@thirtydaes.com

Best Photo Blog

Popular Vote: Sandra Rose
Judges’ Vote: Afro Sugar

Best Podcast

Popular Vote: The Insanity Report
Judges’ Vote: Mixed Chicks Chat

Best Political/News Blog

Popular Vote: The Field Negro
Judges’ Vote: The Field Negro

Best Science/Technology Blog

Popular Vote: Nerd With Swag
Judges’ Vote: SheGeeks^*

Best Sports/Recreation Blog

Popular Vote: Sportaphile
Judges’ Vote: Ed the Sports Fan

Best Style and Fashion Blog

Popular Vote: Afrobella
Judges’ Vote: Scandalous Beauty

Best Teen Blog

Popular Vote: My Teenage Years
Judges’ Vote: Life, Society and Style

Best Video Blog

Popular Vote: Love B. Scott
Judges’ Vote: Ill Doctrine

Best Writing in a Blog

Popular Vote: Afrobella
Judges’ Vote: The Black Snob

Blog of the Year

Popular Vote: Young, Black and Fabulous
Judges’ Vote: Jack & Jill Politics

Blog to Watch

Popular Vote: DC to BC
Judges’ Vote: The Peoples News

And the winner of the Aaron Hawkins Award is…

Michael David Cobb Bowen of Cobb!

Michael David Cobb Bowen — a self-considered “Hayekian, pragmatist, economic Chicagoan and geopolitical neoconservative” — has been actively blogging since December 1999. Bowen, who also has Google notebooks of his research available on his blog, has been featured on NPR’s “News and Notes”, Blogcritics, NPR’s “Tell Me More”, and in several magazine, website and radio interviews. Bowen is also the founder of the Conservative Brotherhood, and is currently working on a book about the movement from progressive to conservative in the African-American political tradition.

Feel free to join our forum to get in on the discussions for future installments of the Awards (it’s a little scarce now, but feel free to post a topic). Your feedback is what helps make the Awards the premiere Internet event that has recognized and celebrated Black bloggers since 2005.

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

See you in 2009!