The Black Weblog Awards » News

And the Award Goes To…

Maurice — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:00:18 +0000

Once again, you have done it! With over 27,000 ballots submitted, the winners of the 2010 Black Weblog Awards have been selected by you – the blogging public – and our team of distinguished judges. Only a handful of votes separated the winners from the other finalists in several categories.

And for the first time ever, we had a tie for one of our finalists! Now we have two blogs sharing one category win for the popular vote. Wow!

Here’s the moment of truth. We present to you the winners of the 2010 Black Weblog Awards.

Best Blog Design

Popular Vote: The Young, Black, and Fabulous
Judges’ Vote: Mostbeautifullest

Best Blog Network

Popular Vote: Global Grind Network
Judges’ Vote: theFreshXpress Blog Network

Best Blog Post Series

Best Business Blog

Popular Vote: Young, Fabulous & Self-Employed
Judges’ Vote: kiss my black ads

Best Cooking or Food Blog

Popular Vote: Yes, Divas Can Cook
Judges’ Vote: My Life Runs on Food

Best Culture Blog

Popular Vote: Black Girl with Long Hair
Judges’ Vote: Socialtik Mag

Best Faith-Based Blog

Popular Vote: The Old Black Church!
Judges’ Vote: The Secular Parent

Best Fashion or Beauty Blog

Popular Vote: Afrobella
Judges’ Vote: Afrobella

Best Film Blog

Popular Vote: Black Box Office
Judges’ Vote: Shadow and Act

Best Gaming or Comics Blog

Popular Vote: Black Nerd Comedy
Judges’ Vote: Black Comix

Best Gossip Blog

Popular Vote: The Young, Black, and Fabulous
Judges’ Vote: Necole Bitchie

Best Group Blog

Popular Vote: Very Smart Brothas
Judges’ Vote: Very Smart Brothas

Best Health or Wellness Blog

Popular Vote: A Black Girl’s Guide to Weight Loss
Judges’ Vote: A Black Girl’s Guide to Weight Loss

Best Hip-Hop Blog

Popular Vote: AllHipHop
Judges’ Vote: Hip Hop Blog

Best Humor Blog

Popular Vote: O Hell Nawl
Judges’ Vote: Very Smart Brothas

Best International Blog

Popular Vote: Catch a Vibe
Judges’ Vote: Catch a Vibe

Best LGBT Blog

Popular Vote: The Skorpion Show
Judges’ Vote: TransGriot

Best Microblog

Popular Vote: Sister Toldja
Judges’ Vote: The Smithian

Best Music Blog

Popular Vote: SoulBounce
Judges’ Vote: SoulBounce

Best Photography Blog

Popular Vote: My Damn Blog
Judges’ Vote: Chookooloonks

Best Podcast Series

Popular Vote: HBCU Digest Radio
Judges’ Vote: Friday Favecast

Best Political or News Blog

Popular Vote: The Urban Politico
Judges’ Vote: Black Snob

Best Science or Technology Blog

Popular Vote: Black Web 2.0
Judges’ Vote: Black Web 2.0

Best Sex or Relationships Blog

Popular Vote: Until I Get Married
Judges’ Vote: The Relationship Playbook

Best Sports Blog

Popular Vote: Hardwood Diva
Judges’ Vote: Black Sports Online

Best Teen Blog

Popular Vote: Teen Savvy
Judges’ Vote: DamierDesigns MMX

Best Travel Blog

Popular Vote: Black in Cairo
Judges’ Vote: Jay Travels

Best Video Blog Series

Popular Vote: The Skorpion Show
Judges’ Vote: Ill Doctrine

Best Writing in a Blog

Popular Vote: Until I Get Married
Judges’ Vote: Uptown Notes

Blog of the Year

Popular Vote: Miss Jia
Judges’ Vote: O Hell Nawl

Blog to Watch

Popular Vote: Angry Black Lady Chronicles
Judges’ Vote: The Gentlemen’s Standard

And the winner of the Aaron Hawkins Award is…

Earl Dunovant!

Earl Dunovant is a web developer and political activist who has blogged at Prometheus 6 since January 2004. Dunovant is also a member of the Media Bloggers Association, has attended presidential debates as a credentialed blogger, and has been featured on NPR as part of News and Notes‘ Bloggers Roundtable.

Winners, contact us at staff@blackweblogawards.com to receive your winners’ graphic!

Our Kickstarter campaign is still chugging along, and we need your support. We have less than 24 hours left, and you can pledge as little as $1 or as much as you like. Those pledging at the $100 level or higher will receive a free invite to our ceremony once our fundraising goal is met! If you haven’t pledged yet, please do so today. If you have already pledged, thank you for your support, and we hope you will pledge again!

Make sure you’ve signed up for our email newsletter to receive the latest information about the Black Weblog Awards!

Next up: our 2010 BWA postmortem. Stay tuned!

Voting Ends Today at Midnight

Maurice — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:00:48 +0000

Today is the last day to get in your votes for the finalists in the 2010 Black Weblog Awards. The voting form will automatically close at 12:00am EDT. You will not be able to cast any more votes for this year’s awards after that point.

The winners will be announced at noon on September 1.

The Black Blogger Association

Maurice — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:00:06 +0000

Continuing from our earlier post (“Why Don’t More Black Bloggers Work Together?”), this week we are looking into the history of the short-lived Black Bloggers Association.

In 2010, there’s no doubt that Black bloggers are making names for themselves and making an impact on the current media landscape. However, with all this happening, what we’re seeing are several dynamic individuals working separately, but very few actual groups working together as an association for larger gains, such as getting involved in programming, venture capital, or political efforts.

Warning: This post does contain some strong language.

In early 2005, there was an organization called the Black Blogger Association headed up by Ric Landers (aka Ricky Landers or Ric Ricland). Here is the site’s mission statement:

Black Bloggers Association (BBA) is a non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting BBA members and their blogs. The membership includes independent/amateur bloggers, professional bloggers and professional writers who operate a personal blog, as well as those interested in the development of media blogging, citizen journalism, and related endeavors.

Black Bloggers Association believes in the independence and freedom of expression of its members.

Below are the current requirements for membership in Black Bloggers Association:

Actively blogging.
Touching base with other members.

From the beginning, Landers ran into problems with his site, primarily because the “association” was actually a content scraping site with ads placed to make Landers money. (Sound familiar?) Now keep in mind, this is in 2005, when there were not many Black bloggers around. So when you think about referrals from other websites, it comes up as a big issue when someone is using your content and not crediting you for it — or worse — not paying you for it when they are possibly turning a profit through advertising.

To add further insult to injury, many of the bloggers whose content were lifted had their names misspelled, mismatched to others content, or were removed all together. Some of the content wasn’t even from Black bloggers.

When word of the BBA got out to the bloggers whose content got scraped, it was not pretty. Instead of Landers reaching out to the Black blogging community for help and improving on their suggestions, he chided and derided them for voicing their opinions. Here’s one of the more colorful diatribes he delivered to a group of LGBT bloggers in 2005:

You old women need to stop your carping and caterwalling and get your own sites up to speed. The technology is out there. Don’t throw stones at me because I take the effort to learn it. And that’s typical of us, ain’t it? Crabs in a barrel. Never happy unless we’re blocking another brother’s shot. [link]

Some five years later, Ric Landers is still around online:

On a forum post entitled “Jungle Bunny N*gg*rs in Alaska”, Ric says he’s looking for “a new place to relocate my pimping business” and asks if Eskimo girls are “good earners”.
He has a script posted on Scribd called “Nazi Baby Mamas of Harlem” where Harlem girls use Aryan sperm to win pretty baby contest. The script is not attributed to him, but his picture and name are present.
He has an active YouTube channel with a parody of a Nigerian oil scam, as well as a “blackface” version of the popular “Charlie Bit Me” YouTube video, but depicted by two naked African children in a hut.
There’s also a forum on Topix called “Is Ric Ricland truly a Black man?” where he’s made comments on other Topix boards like “If there’s 2.4 million black female businesses in the states, 2.399,999,999 are beauty shops and soul food shacks” and “I would ask didn’t your father teach you to respect your elders but since they haven’t figured out who he is yet, I don’t want to hurt your feelings … bitch”.

The Black Bloggers Association website was last updated in late 2006 and is currently offline.

Disqualification for “Best Hip-Hop Blog”

Maurice — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 03:38:35 +0000

It has come to our attention that one of the finalists for the “Best Hip Hop Blog” has posted several hardcore pornographic videos, including a ten minute clip posted today, on their homepage. After verifying this, we have disqualified WSHH Videotube from the “Best Hip-Hop Blog” category, and any votes cast for that blog are now invalid and have been removed from our database.

Per our rules, reserve the right to disqualify any nominees, finalists, or winners that violate any of the Black Weblog Awards rules, invade privacy, make specific threats of violence, spam others, or compromise the integrity of the awards. All decisions relating to nominations and vote counts are final and made at our discretion.

We have promoted the next highest nominated blog for that category, Novembers Children, to their finalist spot. This has been reflected on the finalist voting form as well as on the finalists page.

We Have A New Prize Partner: Blogging While Brown!

Maurice — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 13:26:21 +0000

Blogging While Brown is an annual conference to give bloggers of color the opportunity to discuss current issues, learn about the latest technology, and fellowship with other bloggers. As our new prize partner, they have offered the following:

One (1) free registration to Blogging While Brown 2011, July 8-9 in Los Angeles, California ($200 value)

The registration will go to the popular vote winner of the Best New Blog category.

Find out more information about Blogging While Brown at http://www.bloggingwhilebrown.com. And make sure to tell them thanks for supporting the Black Weblog Awards!

Interested in becoming a sponsor, media partner, or prize partner? Contact us at brandon[at]blackweblogawards[dot]com and we will send you our sponsorship kit.

Say Hello To Our New Prize Partner: Fourblend!

Maurice — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:00:15 +0000

Fourblend, a creative services company in Marietta, GA, has offered the following prize packages to our winners:

Print Identity Package: Logo design, Business card design, and 100 business cards ($225 value)
Web Identity Packages: Logo design, four (4) standard size web banners (120×600, 728×90, 250×250, 300×250) ($200 value)

The Print Identity Package prize will go to the popular vote winner of the Blog to Watch category, and the two Web Identity Packages will go to the popular vote and judges’ vote winners of the Blog of the Year category.

Find out more information about Fourblend at http://fourblend.com. And make sure to tell them thanks for supporting the Black Weblog Awards!

Interested in becoming a sponsor, media partner, or prize partner? Contact us at brandon[at]blackweblogawards[dot]com and we will send you our sponsorship kit.

New Finalists for “Best Blog Design” and “Best Culture Blog”

Maurice — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:54:27 +0000

Clutch Magazine, a finalist for “Best Blog Design” and “Best Culture Blog” has asked to be removed from both categories. According to Clutch Magazine, they are an online magazine and not a blog, and wish to give honor and recognition to real bloggers and blogs.

We respect their position on this and have complied with their wishes. In the event of a finalist wanting to remove their blog from the voting procedure, their spot is filled by the next ranked blog in that category. The following two blogs are now finalists in their respective categories:

Best Blog Design: Madame Noire
Best Culture Blog: Black Girl with Long Hair

All current votes for Clutch Magazine in both categories are now invalid and have been removed from our database. The 2010 Black Weblog Awards finalist list has been updated to reflect the change, as well as the online voting ballot.

Technical Difficulties

Maurice — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 19:47:11 +0000

We’re having some issue with our site database, so you may see a 404 error when going to the main page of the site. Don’t worry — this does not affect voting! We will have things fixed as soon as possible.

Thanks!

UPDATE: To speed up page load time, we have disabled the Disqus commenting system. You will still be able to comment on the site, just not by using Twitter, Facebook, or OpenID.

The 2010 Black Weblog Awards Finalists

Maurice — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:00:36 +0000

With over 10,000 ballots and over 32,000 nominations, This year has been our most popular year to date. We say that every year, but it’s true! Every year, we just keep on growing.

In several categories, only one ballot separated the finalists. Talk about a close race! When we tell you that every nomination counts and you need to campaign if you want to win, we mean it.

We’ll talk a little bit about our vote audit process and give you a couple of helpful hints in a later post, but for now, we present to you our 2010 Black Weblog Awards finalists.

Best Blog Design

Best Blog Network

Best Blog Post Series

“Black Republicans” (via The Urban Politico)
“How I Finally Found Faith” (via Three Ways to Take It)
“I Love Black Men” Series (via Black ‘n’ Bougie)
“Michael Jackson and the Five Stages of Grief” (via What Would Thembi Do?)
“Wet Wednesdays Erotica”(via Naked With Socks On)

Best Business Blog

Best Cooking or Food Blog

Best Culture Blog

Best Faith-Based Blog

Best Fashion or Beauty Blog

Best Film Blog

Best Gaming or Comics Blog

Best Gossip Blog

Best Group Blog

Best Health or Wellness Blog

Best Hip-Hop Blog

Best Humor Blog

Best International Blog

Best LGBT Blog

Best Microblog

Best Music Blog

Best New Blog

Best Parenting or Family Blog

Best Personal Blog

Best Photography Blog

Best Podcast Series

Best Political or News Blog

Best Science or Technology Blog

Best Sex or Relationships Blog

Best Sports Blog

Best Teen Blog

Best Travel Blog

Best Video Blog Series

Best Writing in a Blog

Blog of the Year

Blog to Watch

If you’re one of the finalists, then congratulations! Email us at staff@blackweblogawards.com to receive your finalist badge. Display it proudly!

We also have exactly one month left in our Kickstarter campaign for the 2011 Black Weblog Awards. If you haven’t pledged yet, visit us at http://bit.ly/bwa2011 to give. The minimum donation is now just $1. One dollar! And I know some of y’all got paid on Friday. Take a few minutes out of your day and help us put on a live awards ceremony in 2011!

VOTING IS NOW OPEN!.

Voting will end on August 31; winners will be announced on September 1.

Welcome Our New Media Partner: BlogWorld & New Media Expo!

Maurice — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:00:44 +0000

What’s blue, green, located in Las Vegas, and just became our newest media partner?

BlogWorld & New Media Expo!

As media partners, you will start seeing some BlogWorld & New Media Expo information around the site, including a discount code for registrations for the October 14-16 event. We’ll have news on that later on the week, so stay tuned! Check after the jump for more information on BlogWorld & New Media Expo, and make sure to tell them thanks!

BlogWorld & New Media Expo is the first and only industry-wide tradeshow, conference, and media event dedicated to promoting the dynamic industry of new media including all forms of blogging, podcasting, social media, social networking, online video, music, Internet TV and radio. The BlogWorld conference features more than 120 educational sessions, panel discussions and keynote presentations, while the New Media Expo features the only industry-wide new media marketplace where thousands converge to network and find all of their online business and marketing resources. Running concurrent with the BlogWorld conference, the Social Media Business Summit is the world’s largest social media business conference where marketing executives, business owners and world-renowned companies send their teams to learn the strategies, tactics, tools and technologies they need to build their brands and grow their businesses with social media.

Additional information on BlogWorld & New Media Expo, including conference and registration details, is available at http://www.blogworldexpo.com.

Interested in becoming a sponsor? Contact us at brandon[at]blackweblogawards[dot]com and we will send you our sponsorship kit.