Glamorati is having a headline writing contest, announced in the News from the Glamorati blog. In June, all you have to do is submit stories to Glamorati, and you’ll receive $5 for each published story. Here’s how it works:

Participants will receive $5 for each published submission and the grand prize is $500 which goes to the contestant with the most number of points (published submissions = 10 points and comments on the site = 1 point)

So what you need to do is find a funny, interesting, or weird pop culture story to submit, which shouldn’t be so hard since pop culture is all that by itself. You’ll need a Glamorati account, but that’s no biggie.

So that’s it? Find a story, submit, it gets published, you get $5 and the chance of the $500 grand prize? Ryan Caldwell of Glamorati, won’t this be expensive?

Yes, but probably not as expensive as developing the site in the first place. ;-)

Ouch. Or not. On a more serious note, Ryan explained:

Since headline writing is so important to blogging, I thought this contest would be a natural fit for the blogging community.

Good luck on the contest, Ryan. Be sure to check out Glamorati and the contest post in the News from the Glamorati blog.

Disclosure: I did the Glamorati design.

Have you given much thought to your blog anniversary this year? Some don’t celebrate the passing starting dates of their blogs, but for many, blog anniversary celebrations are getting bigger and wilder every year.

Some have hosted huge contests with a lot of giveaways. Many review their previous year with lessons learned and goals set for the next blogging year. Others have gone quietly into their second and third years of blogging with a post reminiscing about the year that has past.
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Performancing has announced the winners of the recently-concluded 2007 Performancing Blog Awards.

With over 61,000 votes in one week of voting (Readers’ Choice) and ongoing behind the scenes deliberation (Editors’ Choice) we’ve selected the winners of this year’s Performancing Blog Awards.

In some cases, the Readers and the Editors selected the same winners. However, more often than not, the Readers and Editors selected different winners. In those cases, it’s for you to decide who made the better choice;-)

The 2007 Performancing Blog Awards granted cited the top blogs in 28 categories, with each category having a winner for the Readers’ Choice (voted upon by readers) and Editor’s Choice (chosen by the Performancing editors).

Readers picked Zen Habits as the 2007 Best Overall Blog award, while the editors chose TechCrunch as the top overall blog. Meanwhile, readers voted for Darren Rowse as most influential blogger while the editors chose Brian Clark.

You can view the winners and runner-ups of these and all the other categories over at Performancing. Our congratulations go to the winners, runners-up, nominees, and the Performancing team for making the blogosphere a better place!

Performancing’s Ryan Caldwell has recently announced the 2007 Performancing Blog Awards, which aims to highlight the very best that the blogosphere has to offer. Starting December 17th, bloggers are encouraged to nominate blogs and/or bloggers for various fields and categories.

Official Categories For The 2007 Performancing Blog Awards:

1. The Best Overall Blog
2. The Most Influential Blogger
3. The Best Blog Design
4. The Best Blog Typography
5. The Best Blog Name
6. The Best New Blog
7. The Best Blog Community
8. The Most Improved Blog of 2007
9. The Best Blogs You’ve Never Heard Of
10. The Best Blog Podcast
11. The Best Use of a Corporate Blog
12. The Best Video Blog
13. The Best Writing/Blogging Blog
14. The Best Science/Technology Blog
15. The Most Controversial Blog
16. The Best SEO Blog
17. The Best Celeb/Style Blog
18. The Best Business/Money Blogs
19. The Best Photo Blog
20. The Best Sports Blog
21. The Best Blog WebHost
22. The Best Family and Parenting Blog
23. The Best Political Blog
24. The Best Food/Health Blog
25. The Funniest Blog

It’s the people’s awards afterall…

26. The Best Travel Blog
27. The Best Education Blog

Performancing has also asked the blogging community for any help or tips in deciding which among the nominees are deserving enough to be awarded in each category, whether as the winner, runners-up or honorable mentions.

If you would like to make a nomination, please leave a comment at the Performancing 2007 Blog Awards page. You may also use the Award badge (direct hotlinking permitted) if you would like to help spread the word.

Disclosure: Performancing is owned by Splashpress Media, the parent company of the Blog Herald.

Apologies to my US friends peeking over from above a turkey-laden table, but here’s some more indulgence for us Brits.

Shiny Media has launched a second competition in association with LG, this time offering two lucky people a six-month video blogging internship.

If presenting is your thing, then simply shoot some footage of you at your best. If you prefer video editing, no problem. Take some of the supplied raw footage and turn it into a masterpiece.

You’ve got about three weeks or so to submit something, with the competition closing on 14th December.

The two lucky winners will receive training by top talent in video blogging, the opportunity to contribute to videos that are watched by a daily audience of thousands, an all expenses paid trip to Barcelona to cover the 3GSM World Congress next year, a blog on which you can share your experiences, and a new LG Viewty phone.

Unfortunately, it’s only open to those in the UK (you’ll be working at Shiny HQ in London). For much more information about the competition, visit the official competition web site: LG Video Media Talent Award, or visit the YouTube channel to view the videos and vote.

Disclosure: Andy writes for several of Shiny Media’s blogs

Consumer electronics company LG, who have recently started making great mobile phones, are currently running a competition in five European countries, trying to find the ten best mobloggers to capture images of people which best shows off the style of that particular country.

Mobile phone users in Germany, Spain, the UK, France, and the Netherlands, have been taking pictures and posting them, with a subject, to the City Clickers web site.

The ten people (two from each country) who snap the best photos will win a new LG Viewty phone, plus their bill paid for two months, and training on how best to use the phone.

It’s been running for a couple of weeks now, and closes at midnight CET on Sunday 25th November 2007. So you Europeans still have time to get out there this weekend and snap some stylish shots.

(Via Tech Digest)

For the new media company that we are, Splashpress Media has still been focusing on contributor-driven content, and not much on user/reader-driven content. Sure, with Performancing the forum and the Performancing blog are all about the readers as contributors. But there’s still something amiss–a site where the users really get to shine.

So with this we thought of a social bookmarking/news site that focuses on one of our areas of expertise: the blogosphere. Splashpress Media is proud to announce the launch of Blogosphere News as a social news site that focuses on blogging-related content.

With Blogosphere News, members can submit their own entries, and these can be anything related to blogging–new blog launches, blogging tips, blogging news, blogger events, software, widgets, how-tos, videos, and the like. Users also get to vote on other members’ stories that they think are worth reading. Bad stories (spam, duplicates, useless stuff) can be “buried”. The more popular entries would then be promoted to the front page. You know the Digg system? Yes, it’s the same!

Blogosphere News also features a “live” view, where you can take a peek at what’s being submitted or voted on at any single moment. You can also take a look at the tag view, where keywords are listed by weight and importance.

Easy submit links

Blogosphere News also lets bloggers easily submit links to the system by adding a simple line of code to their themes. Clicking these would automatically submit the URL of the page being viewed to Blogosphere News.

Blogosphere News button

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.blogospherenews.com/evb/check_url.js.php"></script>

Would look like this:

Blogosphere News link

<a href="javascript:void(document.location = ('http://www.blogospherenews.com/submit.php?url=' .concat(document.location))) ">Submit post to Blogosphere News</a>

Would look like this:

Submit post to Blogosphere News

A chance to win prizes

What’s more is that for the next three months, we would be running a contest where the member with the most voted stories will win prizes. The following prizes are at stake:

• $100 (payable via PayPal)
• A free BlogHoster software package (worth $250)

The members at second and third spots get $50 each. I’m still negotiating other prizes (in kind or in cash), to make things more interesting.

As for the rules, the entries have to be blogging-related or at least relevant to new media/social media. And employees/contributors of Splashpress Media are not eligible to join the contest.

Deutsche Welle has announced the 2007 Best of the Blogs competition, where blogs from around the world compete for the prestige of being considered the “best” from among 15 categories, including best weblog, best podcast, best videoblog, Blogwurst award, and best weblog in each of the 10 eligible languages. A Reporters Without Borders award will also be given to an eligible blogger who takes a strong stance on freedom of information online.

Partnering with Reporters Without Borders for this year’s competition, the main goals of the BOBs are to “present a wide spectrum of the blogsphere and to
encourage a language-crossing dialogue through this new form of media,” and also to “support bloggers in countries where freedom of speech and press are limited,” according to Deutsche Welle editor-in-chief Uta Thofern.

Nomination is open throughout September this year, and finalists would be selected by October 10th and winners by November 10th. The jury is comprised of bloggers, journalists and media experts from around the globe. The awarding ceremony will be held on November 15th in Berlin, Germany.

CollegeScholarships.org has recently announced its 2007 Blogging Scholarship competiton where one exceptional student blogger will be chosen for a $10,000 award. Any eligible college student with a personal or professional blog may participate. You may also nominate fellow students who blog.

Scholarship Requirements:

• Your blog must contain unique and interesting information about you and/or things you are passionate about. No spam bloggers please!!!
• U.S. citizen;
• Currently attending full-time in post-secondary education; and
• If you win, you must be willing to allow us to list your name and blog on this page. We want to be able to say we knew you before you became a well educated, rich, and famous blogging legend.

Important Dates:

• Submission Deadline: Midnight PST on Oct. 6th
• 10 Finalists Announced and Public Voting Begings: 9am EST on Oct. 8th
• Public Voting Ends and Winner Declared: Midnight PST on Oct. 28th

The winners will then be selected from among ten finalists by public voting. CollegeScholarships.org will announce the winners on the Blogworld & New Media Expo in November.

[Via eMediaWire]

The Webby Awards were announced recently and the whose who of the web world and blogosphere were honored. Then there is the upcoming Bloggers Choice Awards. There are also the Irish Blog Awards, Bloggy Award, Canadian Blog Awards, Weblog Awards (or Bloggies), Okie Blog Awards (for Oklahoma bloggers), The Music Blog Awards, American Wine Blog Awards, SA Blog Awards (South Africa), Catholic Blog Awards, 2006 Medical Weblog Awards, Australian Blog Awards, Philippine Blog Awards, and even the Blog Of The Day Awards with a blog awarded every day of the year.

Some of these blog contests involve your blog being nominated whether you know it or not. Some blog contests require you submit your blog for consideration. Some blog contests focus only on design and presentation while others judge your overall content and in-depth coverage of your subject matter. Some judge all blogs equally, others have categories for specific types of blogs, such as the Best Blog About Blogging in the Blogger’s Choice Awards.

For the most part, these online blog competitions require voting by anyone who registers to vote. A few are selected and voted on by a single blogger or panel. Some allow anyone to vote and then the final top 5 or so for each category are judged by panelists.

Winning one of these contests can mean increased traffic and attention to your blog, as well as recognition for the work that you do. It always feels good to get such honors. And you got to admit that putting up a “best blog” banner on your blog sure feels good.

So how do blogs with these award? The same way you win your reading audience. By creating the best blog you can.

To win most blog contests, you need to:

1. Enter the contest or get nominated.
2. Meet all the entry requirements.
3. Meet web standards.
4. Impress them.
5. Have quality content and information.

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