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Topic: Q&A
Why Are the Same Blogs Nominated Every Year?
By Maurice | 6 comments
6The short answer to this question could be because people vote for them every year. And believe me, this is something we have been aware of for a while now.
Popular blogs are popular. We introduced the judging panel and the Black Weblog Awards Hall of Fame to counteract this. The Hall of Fame particularly does this by taking blogs which have won over the years to be “retired” for a particular category.
Nominees are a different story. They are chosen by the public and voted on by the public. So if the question is “why are the same blogs nominated every year”, then the bigger question is “why are you only nominating the same blogs”? The finalists are selected from the top 3-5 most nominated blogs, and the rest of the blogs just didn’t receive enough nominations to make it to the finalist round. It’s the classic long tail phenomenon. See the graph below.
So while there may have been blogs of better quality (which is totally subjective) that are not finalists, it still boils down to popularity for the popular vote. And that popularity is based on those voters who have nominated blogs. (The way we choose categories is also tangentially related to this; the more people vote in a particular category, the better chances are of it coming back next year. Check this post for more info.)
If your blog (or a blog you liked) wasn’t a finalist, ask these questions:
- Did the blog owner know they were nominated? Even though we’ve been doing this for six years, there’s still a lot of bloggers who have never heard of the BWAs. If you nominated a blog, do the blog owner a solid and e-mail them to let them know.
- Did the blog owner campaign hard enough for votes? Good content speaks for itself, but it can be hard to find and even harder to market depending on your methods.
- Did the blog owner want to win? We have had people boycott their nominations in the past.
I hope this helps clear up any ambiguity. Comments?
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Why are Blogger and Blogspot So Popular?
By Maurice | 6 comments
6Blogger, founded in 1999, is still one of the most widely used blogging platforms out there. We’ve certainly seen its popularity here on the Black Weblog Awards. On average, well over 2/3 of our nominations are either from sites on Blogger or using Blogspot.
So why is it so popular? We did a little research. Here are the pros and cons of the service.
Categories: Too Many or Not Enough?
By Maurice | 9 comments
9We’ve received a good number of comments lately regarding the number of categories in this year’s Black Weblog Awards:
- I’m put off a little bit by the voting process because I don’t have 35 (!) blogs I want to nominate…but only a few. I imagine there are others like me…which means you might be losing a good number of votes.
- Submission forms are too long and daunting. I don’t know — or care to know — about blogs in all of these categories.
- You need to cut this down to like 12 categories. Nobody cares about all these other blogs.
Does Your Blog Have Ads?
By Maurice | 3 comments
3Ads. Does your blog have them? If so, why? Take our quick poll, and leave your comments on why you do (or don’t) have ads on your blog.
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To Comment or Not To Comment?
By Maurice | 5 comments
5By definition, a blog is just a website with a particular format (entries listed in a chronological order). When it comes to tone or design, blogs and websites are pretty much the same. The difference comes down to comments.
So should your blog have comments, or should you disable them? Check out some of the pros and cons.
Read more
Published by Maurice in comments, seo, spam