The 2008 Philippine Blog Awards was concluded Saturday evening with the awarding ceremonies at the Esplanade in Pasay City, Metro Manila. Finalists in the 23 categories were narrowed down from hundreds of nominees, with winners selected by judges from various fields, mostly in the new media industry.
With the aim of recognizing notable Filipino-owned blogs in different niches, the Philippine Blog Awards was launched in 2007 to showcase notable blogs with quality content that engages readers from around the globe. This second year of the event marked the inclusion of network blogs written by Filipinos, blogs written by mainstream media practitioners as well as local corporations that use blogs are effective communication tools.
Two of our folks from Splashpress Media (which also owns the Blog Herald) were also finalists: Sophia Lucero’s Stellify.net was a finalist for Best Blog Design, and this writer for Best Network Blogger.
The list of Exhibitors and Speakers at Blog World Expo this year is incredible. A veritable list of whose who.
His list of people he’d like to meet got me thinking about my list. And then I started thinking about all the conferences I attend and speak at every year and all the fantastic people I meet, some famous and some not, who change my life in those few minutes of meet and greet.
I love blog and web conferences. I learn so much. While many think that I am there to be the educator, I enjoy them because of the lessons I learn from fellow speakers, but most of all from fellow attendees. Those quickly caught moments in corridors, exhibition halls, at my book table, or even in the restroom. Those are where the real business of a conference really happens. Those quick moments of connections made that last long after the conference. read more
With a US Presidential Election this fall, along with 1/3rd of the Senate up for re-election, and the entire House of Representatives, could 2008 truly be the year of the political blogger?
Beginning Monday, hundreds of bloggers will descend on Denver to see Barack Obama accept his party’s nomination. Next week, hundreds more will travel to St. Paul to witness John McCain’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. But now these online partisans, many of whom are self-financed, must contend with all the logistical and financial hurdles just to get there — not to mention the party politics happening behind the scenes.
This year, both parties understand the need to have greater numbers of bloggers attend. While many Americans may watch only prime-time television broadcasts of the convention speeches, party officials also recognize the ability of bloggers to deliver minute-by-minute coverage of each day’s events to a niche online audience.
To put this into perspective, the 2004 DNC in Boston credentialed only around twelve bloggers. This year, hundreds of bloggers have been credentialed at both convention. The micro-coverage from the smaller blogs and in-depth coverage provided by the larger blogs is going to elevate the artform of political blogging to a whole new level.
A survey conducted by Rosanna Guadagno at the University of Alabama reveals that neurotic women are more likely to blog:
This is consistent with work on internet usage that also found an association with neurotic personality types, but only among women. The researchers surmised that nervous women may blog to “assuage loneliness or in an attempt to reach out and form social connections with others.”
The founder of The Blog Herald, one Duncan Riley, also known from TechCrunch, b5media, and his current project The Inquisitr, is interviewed over at BloggerTalks. The interview tackles his clash with Michael Arrington, how The Inquisitr was built on a premium WordPress theme, and his views on the development of The Blog Herald – this very site. That last one was asked by yours truly with some trepidation, I must confess.
Check out the interview if you’re interested in Duncan’s views on launching a site, tackling blogging with a personal life, and more.
Disclosure: I own BloggerTalks and did the interview.
Veronica Belmont and Sarah Austin wants out of the sexiest female bloggers poll on Playboy, according to a story on TechCrunch, but Playboy says no. It would, of course disrupt the poll. While I have no love for these kind of polls, and the Playboy one is no exception, I do think that if you’ve consented to being featured by Playboy, and even sent in a photo, you’ve got only yourself to blame. In fact, I was somewhat surprised by how frank Playboy was in their approaching e-mail, quoted on TechCrunch.
Sure, maybe they didn’t know that Playboy would ask the winner to pose for the website, but the key word here is ask. You don’t have to say yes, you know…
Luckily, for those involved wanting out, it seems as if the feature’s going away soon. I would bet, however, that we’ll be seeing more of this in the future.
The deletion of posts mentioning Violet Blue has gotten some serious blogosphere and print media coverage. Boing Boing responded, in a way that makes pretty much sense really, but Violet Blue herself didn’t really chip in, more than by linking left and right. Well, no more, she’s had enough, so she’s answering what has been said quote by quote (not everything of course) in a recent blog post (ads are NSFW). With links and lots of reading. If you want to dive into this whole mess, that’s a good place to start, no matter what you think about Boing Boing’s actions.
Jason Calacanis, the founder of Weblogs Inc., which sold to AOL, and also the founder of human search engine Mahalo, have quit blogging. He made the statement on his blog, in a post depicting a fictional press conference. read more
There are some familiar faces, such as the Loaded host Natali Del Conte, interviewed today on BloggerTalks, Xeni Jardin of BoingBoing, and Violet Blue of course.
