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Nominations now open for 2007 SA Blog Awards

by Michael Salzwedel

2007/02/13

Got a favourite blog you can’t stop raving about? Nominate it for the third annual South African Blog Awards, which, its organisers say, “showcase the very best of South African independent web publishing in various categories”.

These days everyone wants to have their say on the Internet and blogs provide opportunity for everyone from technogeeks to entrepreneurs to socialites to get things off their chests and, hey, perhaps even make a meaningful contribution to the online community. So recognising the best local blogs seems like a worthwhile thing to do, hence the SA Blog Awards.The awards are the brainchild of the owners of two established South African blogs: Cherryflava and Your Group of Web AddiCT(s).

Nominations opened yesterday and run until 26 February, after which an appointed bloggers panel will review the nominated blogs for relevance and quality.
Blogs with the most votes will go through to the finals, which run from 5 March to 16 March and are open to the public, with the awards ceremony set for 30 March in Joburg.
Good to see that the public have a worthwhile final say in the awards – public votes count for 50% here, with blogger panel votes counting 20% and ‘celebrity’ votes counting 30%.

Big ups to the organisers for improving the system by giving the general public more of a say as to who comes out tops, in contrast to the 2005 and 2006 awards, but we’re a little curious as to who the ‘celebrity’ voters will be, and why their votes count so much…

For 2007, three more categories have been added into the mix: you can now vote for your favourite South African music, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered or podcast blogs.

Other categories carried over from previous years are:

South African Weblog of the Year
Entertainment
Humour
Politics
Photography
Food
Technology
Business
Best new blog
Best-designed South African blog
Best post on a South African blog
Best overseas South African blog
Best writing on a South African blog

A nifty addition to the nomination process is a nomination widget which bloggers can place on their blogs to allow their readers to easily nominate them for a particular category.

What’s in it for the winners? 2007 South African cents. Yep, that’s a whopping R20.07 straight into the wallet of the winner of the main category. Who said there was no money in blogging? However, the organisers have announced that sponsorships for prizes for the various categories are available, and are ambitiously pushing for a Dell sponsorship…

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The distorted image does not do justice to Nicole, our graphic designers, work. Who do i mail the full sized logo to? Not really pushing for a sponsorship, it was only an idea, worth sharing. The big question is what notebook will be travelling with me to Arusha Tanzania in June for TEDGlobal2007. Lucky enough to receive a fellowship was Your Web AddiCT is. Thank you Google, AMD, GE & Sun :)

Posted by rafiq on 2007/02/13

This logo is badly thought out and terribly executed. It is yet another very literal and unimaginative interpretation of the design brief. The less I say about the typography, the better. It would sit well with the 2010 world cup logo. It hardly inspires one to enter the competition does it?

Posted by James on 2007/02/13

Hey Rafiq, Thanks for sending the logo. You happy with it? S

Posted by Sarah M on 2007/02/13

Agreed - the logo is quite off-putting, even when not pixelated! Looks like it was designed by a schoolkid - I'm not a designer but even I know that WordArt is a definite no-no in anything but Grade 2 projects on how to grow seedlings... The logo is supposed to give some sort of visual representation of the feel/vibe of the awards, and this logo doesn't do much for the credibility of the awards, in my opinion. That said, I still think the awards are a good idea and it will be interesting to see how the South African internet community - particularly blogging community - responds to and values them.

Posted by Michael Salzwedel on 2007/02/13

James - Thanks for the descrtuctive criticism James. Here is the reply to your comments => <= Much better Sarah M, Thank you very much. See you at Web PR +

Posted by rafiq on 2007/02/13

TYFYC Michael - The idea was to make the voting/nomiantion system easier and improve the look of the site compared to previous years. This was done as our contribution to the South African blogosphere of which we are part of. I think this sites look and the system we built to manage nominations and voting is better than the International bloggies by leaps and bounds.

Posted by rafiq on 2007/02/13

What does => <= mean?

Posted by Anonymous on 2007/02/13

=> <= Is pointing to the blank space inbetween.

Posted by rafiq on 2007/02/13

I thought I'd just mention. There was no design brief. It was just to come up with something more efficient than manual emails and personally, I like the logo, it's hell of lot better than the previous SA blog awards. On the subject of WordArt and grade 2, I totally disagree. I think the font fits in fine with the logo and it doesn't matter that you use a common font, so long as it 'works' in context.

Posted by Miguel dos Santos on 2007/02/13

the logo is awful. any size. what is with the wavy type?

Posted by gavich on 2007/02/13

I agree with gavich, mike and james. The concept of the blog awards is great, the logo, less so. What it boils down to, i think, is the lack of imagination and thought that has gone into it. Really guys, come on, a South African flag on a 3D star?! As designers, I know we can all do better than that. One of my biggest concerns though is the type. Typography is one of the hardest parts of design to master, and here we can see what happens when it goes wrong. It isn't legible, it is all wavy, and the font choice could be better. I don't think that Nicole, the designer should take any of this personally. Criticism is one of the biggest parts of being a designer. However, I think that she could have handled the type more sensitively, and should have maybe been less literal in her interpretation of the brief. Also, Rafiq, we don't care that your going to Tanzania. Find another way to work it into the conversation.

Posted by Andrew on 2007/02/13

TYFYC Andrew - /me turns the other cheek.

Posted by rafiq on 2007/02/13

In all fairness, isnt the logo a minor part of the big picture, i cant comment because I cant draw- AT ALL. If you can do better, do it. submit it and let people poll it. or put it on your own nomination widget, and let the votes be taken that way for the best design,( which is not the point is it?) I think it gets the job done. This does assume people actually care, which i suppose is another discussion. Or i coould be totally misreading an innocent game of banter. carry on.

Posted by Smith on 2007/02/13

Eish, there is something very young/ baby like about the logo which reminds me of my little sister's pyjama's. The stars are too soft and perhaps the SA flag should not have been used inside the star as the contrast is too much. Awards are something to be looked up to and I can understand the frustration from people who desperately want these awards to be something which can be taken seriously by bloggers and general SA public alike. The 1st impression is vital in establishing credibility as alot of people work on 1st impressions. Its the reason the Apple iPOD is so successful against other MP3 players with the same functionality. After looking at some other blog awards in the world, I must admit that the design's do not do much for me. Perhaps the next phase of Web 2.0 is learning that our stuff needs to look good in order to project a professional image. Modern design standards as well as creative people are not hard to find for this type of work. The SA Blog awards need to build and be a brand in themselves otherwise some other organisation will get both design, navigation and content right to blow the current setup away! Awards are a classy affair and thus need to express an element of glamour or it becomes an accolade on a piece of paper with no meaning. I always love the Webby Awards - http://www.webbyawards.com for this. They may not showcase the ultimate best websites but their own oozes confidence and creates trust...which keeps me coming back for references and benchmarks for the industry.

Posted by Smallz on 2007/02/13

Wow guys, gain some context and stop being so fucking pedantic for no reason. Take a step back for a second and see how far the SA Blog Awards have come since their inception two years ago, and I think you'll agree that Jon, and Rafiq and his team have done a sterling job in pulling this one off. The nomination process is smooth (I ran into some trouble but contacted Miquel and he sorted it out within minutes), the voting widget is awesome (I'm seeing it all over the local blogosphere) and the organization is much improved. All of that aside, this is a community project and if you're not happy with something which is clearly the case, then at least be constructive about it instead of ranting OT on a blog post that is trying to promote the idea in the first place.

Posted by coda on 2007/02/13

design is pedantic? the bigger picture you are concerned about is being diluted by a crap logo and a very bad looking website. I think its important to address these issues, dont you coda? smith : I also hate people who constantly criticise design and dont offer their own solutions, so maybe entries for a logo can be submitted and then voted on by the public. and michelle - please dont take offence by our comments - designers are anal in nature as you know but this logo is baaaad.

Posted by gavich on 2007/02/14

The very bad design of the logo and website just show the quality of the local blog community (are there more then 10 local blogs?) compared to more advanced overseas blogs, both in design and content. No gradients and reflections? So not web 2.0, the logo isnt even web 1.0 (like the site too).

Posted by Murray on 2007/02/14

At the moment I feel pretty kak for Nicole's sake. Not because of the work she's done, but because she's been graciously introduced to the insular, narrow-minded and selfish nature of most mediocre South African designers with a chip on their shoulder. I agree that the logo could definitely have been resolved better, but most of the critiques' sole aim have been the commentators constant motivation to get off on their own superiority. Part of the creative process is making mistakes, learn from this one Nicole, grow and screw the provincial decorators who think that a penchant for Helvetica Neue make them original and inspired designers.

Posted by pieter on 2007/02/14

Murray - That was the funniest comment ever.

No gradients and reflections? So not web 2.0

Posted by rafiq on 2007/02/14

I love Nicole, she seems to be so powerful getting everyones knickers in twist. And why pick on Helvetica? its cool man. i like tahoma. Onwards an upwards. Note to self : when launching blog make sure has reflections. s.aluting

Posted by Smith on 2007/02/14

Although it has to be said that the logo for this year's blog awards is not going to win any prizes - the objective of the new nomination and voting site is to make the process of engagement as easy as possible. In the past, the manual processing of each phase took loads of time - and thanks to the guys at Web AddiCTs that problem has been effectively streamlined. Everyone involved in the awards are doing it without payment,. They've given their time and effort to showcase the best of South African blogging on behalf of the local community. We're obviously aiming to produce the best and most equitable system that we possibly can, so your feedback and constructive input is most welcome. If you'd like to get involved in making the local brand a world-class process both in design and functionality - then please send us a mail via the contact form on the site and lets chat.

Posted by Cherryflava on 2007/02/14

christ, why are there so many chops in this country?

Posted by Stefano on 2007/02/14

I'm no designer or copy writer, but I am an SA web user and blog reader. I had a quick squiz at the SA Blog Awards website. Why is it necessary to have 20,000,000 different fields to nominate one or three blogs. Why not just 3 fields and a drop down menu to select the category. Or even better, just a nomination field. If the panel can't pick up what category it should fall in - then the blog can't be any good anyway...

Posted by Werner on 2007/02/14

Dissing the logo in an open public forum such as this is possibly the most childish thing I've witnessed in the SA blogosphere. Most bloggers, the target audience for this campaign, think it looks and runs a lot better than last year, and even last year was great fun. So thanks to all the people who are working behind the scene to make it happen. Highly appreciated this year, as in previous years!

Posted by Dave on 2007/02/14

I guess I just don't understand the nitpicking on this. The logo is fine, if anyone can do better, why not just submit your logo idea for next year? The SA Blog awards are one of the best done blog awards worldwide (this year at least). Take pride in knowing that. Honestly, I think the nomination system is better than the Bloggies, so kudos to everyone that teamed up to make it happen.

Posted by hash on 2007/02/14

Fully agree hash. Everyone else share your ideas, but dont shit on other ideas while you're at it.

Posted by rafiq on 2007/02/14

Thanks. There are still some major shortcomings in the SA Blog Awards Nomination Process in my opinion. It's a lot better than last years email submissions, but it can be better. I just developed it according to Jon Cherry's awards rules (copied from the bloggies, I found), which is minimum 3 blogs per form submission. Successive form submissions overwrite the previous, however I made an exception for the nominate me badge, but optimally you should be able to nominate blogs as you please without restriction, subject to the category nomination limit. I could spend more time on it, but there is such a thing as good enough and next year the framework will have been laid out for an even better system. I'll release the source code for the sa blog awards sometime soon, for others to help develop it for next year.

Posted by Miguel dos Santos on 2007/02/14

Miguel it is a lot better than last years system. Well on you for spending the time to develop and improve this for all. Looking forward to seeing what everybody will come up with logo designs. I wish I could have an Apple TV...

Posted by Werner on 2007/02/14

anyonje tracking this page....?

Posted by Smith on 2007/02/14

Criticism is a neccessary evil and by its very nature can sometimes be harsh. There is no reason why SA Blog awards should be exempt from this when the entire internet industry is held to ransom by the media, business and public alike. Take it on the chin and move on. People do not have to be nice and sugar coat their comments. In fact, all the so called "negative, destructive" commentary will probably and is resulting in a positive outcome. I don't think many people are questioning the format, system,setup and idea behind the awards. Its fantastic and deserves a big thumbs up! We are criticising the so called front door (design/logo) of the awards webpage. Its like "really awesome house in a nice neighbourhood but could do with a better front door and a fresh coat of paint" I hear "childish, selfish, narrow minded, egostistical" being mentioned about the abrasive commentary. The way I am seeing it is that people really give a damn about what these awards represent and actually trying to help...in their own ways of course. Have a look at this forum for crits on an email campaign

Posted by Primate on 2007/02/15

Wow this post certainly has generated some debate. All I can say is luckily designers have thick skin and most are used to this kind of harsh crit! I honestly think Nicole has done a pretty good job with the logo. Maybe the powerpoint text over the stars is a bit amateur, but I do think with a few minor tweaks it could be quite hot! I think Murray needs to take another look around the SA blogosphere. Have you been locked in a cage for the past year? The SA blogosphere is growing in strength and size daily.

Posted by Mark on 2007/02/15

I can't believe how anal some people. who cares about the bloody logo, it is the idea behind the awards that counts. Constructive criticism is one thing, nasty-assed whinging is another thing all together. If you hate the logo then either look away or come up with a better one. Thanks to those who put in their time and effort do the SA blog awards. If it wasn't for guys like you, it wouldn't get done. Well done.

Posted by Tertia on 2007/02/19

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