Uganda Best of Blog Awards 2008 – A few questions
The Uganda Best of Blog’s Awards are coming up, and after a few impromptu discussions with Jackfruity, Darlene, Ivan, Rev, and I, it was decided we’d put a small suggestions announcement here.
Since this is your thing, we need a little help from you guys, the Blogren.
Without further ado…
A. Categories
Last year’s UBOB Awards had the following categories:
- Ugandan blog of the year
Open to any blog written by a Ugandan or focusing on Uganda - Best post
The single best piece in the Ugandan blogosphere - Best blog in Uganda
Written by anyone living in Uganda - Best overseas Ugandan blog
Any Uganda-focused or Ugandan-authored blog written in a foreign country - Best writing
Intelligent, witty, feisty, eloquent or just plain funny - Best design
Best overall design and layout - Best photography
Best photo taken by a Ugandan blogger and posted on his or her blog
Question 1: Do we need more categories? And if so, what would they be?
B. Prizes & Awards
To spice up the awards, Node Six has offered to provide free hosting for 3 years as prizes for the winners in five (5) categories. (To explain this more, this allows you to get your own address, like 2weakdudes.com, edgeofinnocence.com, angelakintu.com, as opposed to a Blogspot or Wordpress address.)
So far then, we have:
- First Prize for 5 Categories
Free hosting + Domain Name (.com, .net, .info, .org, .biz) for 3 years. - Banners / Badges / Medals
Someone suggested adding banners to the winner’s site, kind of like medals.
Question 2: Which five categories should have the hosting prize.
Question 3: Do you have suggestions for the other prizes? i.e runner up, etc. Someone had suggested free pizza or drinks, or something like that.
Ivan pointed out that some categories are a little redundant, like “Best Designed Blog” seeing as we all use templates.
Lastly, it was proposed that BlogSpirit be the central voting point for the UBOB awards.
So, that’s a wrap. Let the discussions begin.
—
Audio: T.I. – Swagga Like Us (Ft. Kanye West, Jay Z & Lil Wayne)
—
Offtopic:
In the name of the hungry, of the naked, of the crippled, of the homeless, of the blind, in their name, I accept the award.
- Mother TeresaThe test of any man’s character is how he takes praise.
- Anonymous
Related items
38 Responses to “Uganda Best of Blog Awards 2008 – A few questions”
Leave a Reply
Sherry Darling on January 29th, 2009
Mine stocks!
Sherry Darling’s last blog post..Proudly Ugandan- And a coffee break
Miss Cheri on January 29th, 2009
But namwe, also put prizes for first, second and third runners-up. Afterall,there are no losers right, mbu everyone is a winner. And making it to the top five is just enough. Says Kate Winslet.
Lemme consult the committee.
Yes, that T.I is off the chain holding the hook. (Don’t squint, I live with some 15yr old.)
-Management
Miss Cheri’s last blog post..Proudly Ugandan- And a coffee break
Solomon King on January 29th, 2009
@Cheri, but that’s exactly what we’re asking, what do we put at prizes for the runners up?
And you’ve watched too much Boondocks.
Miss Cheri on January 29th, 2009
Anha, u said prizes for the winners only. ONLY. I’m campaigning for prizes for the rest of the top 5 pack.
Miss Cheri’s last blog post..The Truth and nothing but the truth
DoomsDay on January 29th, 2009
Does it have to always be best??
DoomsDay’s last blog post..Marriage? No ways
The Edge on January 29th, 2009
What makes it the Blog of The Year? Does it have more comments? Is it inspiring? Does it make us stop to think? And if so, what kind of thoughts? Maybe we ought to break down the Best Post into categories as well. Best Post as far as developmental issues are concerned. best Post as far as humour goes, stuff like that. I realise there will likely be more categories that way, but it makes for more specific wins.
The Edge’s last blog post..Driving me mad
Mr. B2B... on January 29th, 2009
Hmmn
Interesting queries SoloDawg
How about you do go ahead and prepare prizes for the winners…
spread out the categories…
Most serious blogger… (in terms of content, i.e. politiks, humour, social drama, total irrelevancies but loads of readers,
and the prizes can be shared out as well too…
i.e. Winner gets the hosting for 18 months, not three years….
anyways, just saying
Mr. B2B…’s last blog post..hiprocksoul
TRP on January 29th, 2009
sigh…i like the prizes….
TRP’s last blog post..Work…
igiss on January 29th, 2009
Me thinks you guys need alot more categories. Let me think of some in the meantime….
igiss’s last blog post..You were right
tumwijuke on January 29th, 2009
The only problem I have with these awards, is that they are not publicized or more open to the public.
Sure, anyone can vote, but it is most likely people who are already bloggers, voting for other bloggers they like or those who are their friends. Being voted Best Blog doesn’t improve the profile of a blog outside of the Uganda blogsphere or help to raise the profile of blogging in Uganda.
This year, we should strive to do more. Perhaps we can encourage our journalism friends to write a piece about the process and to conduct a couple of interviews. Perhaps we could create an open facebook page about the awards. We should twitter about it. We should tag it as much as possible.
Once the general nominations are made, there should be as much publicity as in the initial process.
There are numerous bloggers that are not a part of the small Mateos Ugblogging clique. We could find people who are blogging in Uganda or about Uganda through the numerous aggregators and feeds available and interest them in this process. They may have a couple of meaningful nominations to make.
I’m against the over expansion of the categories. Although there is need perhaps to breakdown one or two categories, prizes for social drama and irrelevancies is pushing it a bit.
Oh, this has gone on too long …
Just one last thing. Could someone with artistic talent create a downloadable button or widget that we can all place on our blogs once the awards are up and running?
Please, please, please don’t include prizes like pizza or a drink. Let’s move away from the clique mentality and expand the Ugblogsphere. Let’s make it truly representative.
Solomon King on January 29th, 2009
@Cheri, a few thoughts on the prizes you have in mind would be nice.
@Doomsday, should we do “worst” as well?
@The Edge, interesting questions you raise there.
I think the benefit of having many people nominate/vote is then you have a more diverse and unique view of why they think it’s “best”, which could be an amalgamation of all you mention.
Can you be more specific on your categories n stuff?
@B2B, the reason we’re having 3 year prizes is the logic that winning 1 years free hosting puts you at a dilemma if you don’t win the next year. Do you go back to blogspot? Or do you suddenly have to start hunting for 60k every year to maintain your blog. Tough choices there.
3 years seems adequate to acclimatise the winner. Opinions of course, are welcome.
@TRP, thank you.
@Igiss, we’ll be waiting.
@Tumwijuke, I agree with what you’re saying. In order to have a more objective public voting experience, we’ll need to get non-bloggers to read the blogs. Voting for a favourite after a few weeks of visiting blogs means you’re limited to the few blogs you’ve read. Hence the need for a more extended publicity period.
Question is, how do we go about this? How do we raise the awareness?
The journalism angle would be brilliant, as it gives instant exposure to a mass audience.
A Facebook page would be great. We’re in the process of doing a BlogSpirit widget for Facebook, but that will not come out in time.
I can do the downloadable button/widget thing, no stress there, or we could have submissions from various artists among us, Ivan for instance, and then we pick out the best.
@all, we need specifics, otherwise we’ll keep going round in circles.
Emi's on January 29th, 2009
Solomon, sorry. Seams My keyboard went hay wire on me and that cool editing thing of yos is no longer available….there is no category of worse anything even in our local PAM awards
What I was going to actually say was
This is such a brilliant Idea….however, we should actually benefit from these awards much more than Pizza -which I can afford.
Also the categories seam rather squeezed. Looking at Nodesix they are like over 100 blogs listed how shall they even fit?
I agree with what most have already said -Expand.
Am off to quest for some knowledge on awards will be back with whatever I get
Emi’s’s last blog post..Marriage? No ways
Ugandan Girl on January 29th, 2009
my i think there should also be a cash award say the winner gets 2m…or a brand new car….something like that
Ugandan Girl’s last blog post..From the heart
antipop on January 29th, 2009
What exactly are we trying to achieve by ‘encouraging our journalistic friends write a piece about the process?
Are we infact then marketing our blogs by publicizing the whole thing?
What is the purpose of the awards and why should we have people who have not been reading and following up on these blogs religiously vote?
Do they know any better?
B2B, 18 months instead of 3 years? what is that beef all about?
Who is going to sift thru all the blogs and blogposts from Jan to Dec to do the sieving process. Who has all that time on his hands? show him to me.
Is the election free and fair?
Must we turn our blogs into commercialised type things complete with cut-throat comeptition and and and where i might turn against my friend coz they beat me to longest blogpost of the century award?
Can’t we all just have fun?
antipop’s last blog post..BHH Impromptus Re-captus
antipop on January 29th, 2009
ha ha. Ugandan girl, who buys the car? Oba now are we going to have to scout for sponsors too? this is getting too amusing!
antipop’s last blog post..BHH Impromptus Re-captus
antipop on January 29th, 2009
what? have i been banneds from this blog? why is my comment awaiting moderation?
antipop’s last blog post..BHH Impromptus Re-captus
antipop on January 29th, 2009
what? have i been banneds from this blog? why is my comment awaiting moderation? i demand a recount!
antipop’s last blog post..BHH Impromptus Re-captus
robyn on January 29th, 2009
its always the same bloggers,ill work on it.
robyn’s last blog post..The Last Poets
The Edge on January 30th, 2009
Our cousins next door had the following categories in their awards. Some reflect the issues I had with ours, the others, may work. What do you think.
1. Kenyan blog of the year (2006) – The best Kenyan blog for this to work a system would have to be put in place to monitor the blog that comes tops regularly ie, weekly, monthly then an aggregate would work. Thafinalword, I believe would have made this work, but seeing as its relatively new, I can’t see how we can pull this one off. Unless of course a blog is nominated in various categories and goes on to win in most. Failing that, we should break it down into categories
2. Trailblazer award – Award for the most innovative, creative blogger and one who is an inspiration to other bloggers. still don’t know how we would choose nominees here
3. Most humorous blog
4. Best political blog
5. Best new blog - Restricted to blogs started in 2007 or 2008, however, yet again, we would need some clear guideline on what makes it the best
6. Best blog not written in English
7. Best poetry blog
8. Best entertainment blog don’t know how this works given that i think we have two or three blogs that deal with the subject ; let’s talk tv, rafshizzle and myles rwamiti’s come to mind
9. Best design – Restricted to blogs with original or modified templates only we have been over this already
10. The most interactive blogger (i.e. one most likely to leave a comment / email/ participate)
11. The blogger one would most like to meet shades of b2b’s awards
12. The coolest blogger doesn’t make sense imho
13. Achievement award – Restricted to blogs started before 2005
The Edge’s last blog post..Driving me mad
The Edge on January 30th, 2009
Antipop raises some interesting questions;
By having newspeople report on these things, what’s to be achieved exactly? More readership? More votes? And if that’s the case, wouldn’t it be way too soon to have the awards seeing as there is no way anyone just coming in would be able to read through all the posts one had the year past?
Plus, are the awards a recognition of bloggers by fellow bloggers a’la screen actor’s guild awards or are they a recognition of bloggers by people reading them outside the blogger collective. If they are in fact set up to provide recognition from the general public as well, it may be way too early to have these awards because until recently there was no straightforward way of finding blogs, Blogspirit has addressed that to a degree and perhaps if anything needs exposure in the media, that would be it. How to go about that, i leave to those wonderful scribes that blog as well. Also, an appeal to Nodesix, it would be nice if you added a submit blog button on the aggregator so that people can register their blogs if they so wish, thereby ensuring there isn’t a clique type feel to the thing, an impression that some may get when they realise their blog is not featured. The net is vast and you can’t be expected to find all the blogs, so it may be easier to have bloggers make their er, blogs known if they feel like it.
whatchathinkabouthat?
The Edge’s last blog post..Driving me mad
The Edge on January 30th, 2009
and finally, anyone seen this
http://siku-moja.blogspot.com/2008/02/kenya-blog-awards-2008.html
The Edge’s last blog post..Driving me mad
Erique on January 30th, 2009
I’ll go with Tumwi here. But about the publicising thing, there’s no way we’ll pull that off. Are we trying to produce more writers or just making people feel good about their blogs?
Which public will do the voting?
Crowning runners-up is crap. You either take it or you don’t.
Pizza? Drinks? Please! Simple recognition is best.
The Edge raises some very serious points. Make the categories then we’ll talk about the voting process. All the best, King.
Erique’s last blog post..Reverse Psychology 101
tumwijuke on January 30th, 2009
Why not publicize? Many people read Ugblogs, but without the publicity, how will they know about the awards?
Antipop, do you know how many people voted in last year’s awards? Dee and Jackfruity can provide the exact figures. It was a paltry number; far fewer than the number of hits I get on my blog everyday.
Perhaps you are not interested in the growth of blogging in Uganda. Perhaps you are not interested in highlighting the work of bloggers, many including yourself Antipop, who do a good job.
The Ugbloggers I know are funny, insightful, controversial, intelligent – and yes, some are plain silly – but someone out there needs to know about them. The awards are a good opportunity to spread the word. The awards are a great opportunity.
No, Antipop, I won’t be asking you to write a piece on the awards, so you can relax. I’ll ask the person sitting next to you.
Erique, there are numerous ways we can improve publicity. In the blogsphere you increase knowledge about your page through one main route – linkage! Link, link, link! Link with twitter. Link with blogger. Link with facebook. Link with Node Six. Link with Afrigator. Link.
We also know that some ‘respected’ radio DJs are regular blog readers. Some even have their own blogs. A mention or two won’t hurt. It may even expose us to a greater number of Ugbloggers in the WWW.
I disagree with you Ivan about the awards being recognition of bloggers by bloggers. How on earth can that be achieved given that the Ugbloggers on your blogroll (or on Node Six) are not representative of even half the Ugbloggers on the WWW who have no idea what’s going on?
C’mon people. We can do better than have the Ugblogs turned into a chest-thumping session for the Mateos gang. (I love the Mateos gang … for real … sometimes).
tumwijuke’s last blog post..Of Strange Headlines and Oops
tumwijuke on January 30th, 2009
Oh, I know the blogs are about work done in the past year.
Have you considered that some readers may have abandoned the blogsphere? Wouldn’t some sort of publicity help to bring them back? Wouldn’t it remind them of that great piece King wrote in June? Wouldn’t they recall that beautiful picture Scarlett Lion took in July?
Wouldn’t some sort of exposure of the awards help in this process?
tumwijuke’s last blog post..Of Strange Headlines and Oops
tumwijuke on January 30th, 2009
I’m no authority on blog awards, but I’m just saying …
tumwijuke’s last blog post..Of Strange Headlines and Oops
King on January 30th, 2009
WOW! I love the direction this is taking!
@Emi’s thanks for the feedback, we’ll be awaiting your findings.
@UgGirl. Cash and car prizes? Very highly impractical at the moment, unfortunately, not to mention prohibitively expensive.
@Antipop, not too sure why your first comment was moderated.
You do raise some interesting thoughts though. Question is, isnt the awards thing a little bit of fun on its own, or do you believe competitiveness will kill the fun factor?
It is my worry though, that aggressive competitiveness could indeed kill the fellowship that the blogren share.
@Ivan, thanks for those specifics, at least that’s a step forward. I’ll look into a future post with revised categories.
Also, the old version of BlogSpirit was very barebones. A proof of concept, so to speak.The new version, being tested has an option to add your own feeds, and also a link to submit a feed. All still under testing though.
@Erique, if we produce more writers, good. If people feel good about their blogs, good, because they’ll put better material. Publicity is good, but how do we go about it?
@Tumwijuke, getting more people to vote is good, because then we do not have biased (rigged) polls, lol. But still those people need to have enough… err, exposure? not sure if that’s the right word. They need to have either read a lot of the blogs or perhaps to have to been exposed enough to blogging in order to vote without prejudice or bias. Does that make sense?
Which then begs another question. Do we publicize, then give a few months before nominations/voting opens?
Also, the number of Bloggers on BlogSpirit is a very paltry fraction of the actual Ugandan bloggers, true. I once did a search and came up with thousands, hence the revision of BlogSpirit’s functionality. Long story.
@All, Good dialogue. Keep ‘em coming!
King’s last blog post..Uganda Best of Blog Awards 2008 – A few questions
The Rogue King » small reminders on January 30th, 2009
[...] the 2009 Uganda Best of Blog Awards are just around the corner. We need your input! So far, the discussion is very [...]
Erique on January 30th, 2009
…”Do we publicize, then give a few months before nominations/voting opens?”
Yes, King. Let’s try Tumwi’s direction here. Well published writers and DJs can lend a hand.
Then we’ll discuss other maybes.
lulu on January 31st, 2009
oh couldnt read all comments but lets include people who read but dont blog their honest view unbaised is good
lulu’s last blog post..confessions of a lost visionary
Concerned Party on January 31st, 2009
What about this. Instead of voting for winners, bloggers and blog readers vote in members of a panel of judges? And instead of categories, just give an award and explain after. You know? Because Iwaya, for example, is in a category of his own. I also suggest that last years winners don’t be eligible. This way we have a new winner every year instead of Tumwi always. Finally, i suggest sending some notification to as many even non mateos blogs as we find. A circular.
Concerned Party on January 31st, 2009
I refer to Tumwi because I truly belive that as long as she is running she is winning. I don’t mean i don’t like her or anything. Don’t misunderstand me.
chanel on February 1st, 2009
less talking more walking Tumwi how about u do d news paper article, Liz can do radio, lucy can do TV
chanel’s last blog post..A Mr. Big joint:I HAD NO IDEA HOW MUCH HUSBANDS ARE WORTH. NOW I HAVE RENEWED ENTHUSIASM TO EXIST.
Mjay on February 1st, 2009
Are you inclusive of Ugandans who blog but are not in the country?
I stumbled upon JackFruity’s blog the other day and was quite amazed at the number of blog lovers in Uganda. For a long time I was cold and lonely lost in my little blog world.
Please get the word out other wise this begins to feel like a clique and the other Ugandans who are bloggers will never know about it.
The Edge on February 1st, 2009
@Concerned Party: Are you serious? You know the bit about barring previous winners from being nominated…no, really?
The Edge’s last blog post..Driving me mad
Mr. B2B... on February 2nd, 2009
@SoloDawgKIng
Just do the nominations already mate…
These concerns are always going to addressed along the way mate…
this is just what the 3rd year of the UgBlogAwards…
but yes, the discussion(s) is very insightful indeed Dawg
But generally, i can’t release my B2B Awards till the UgBlogAwards are released…
You digg!!
[My_Take]
i concur on the suggestions from someone above about a Panel that can rotate every year or so…
and also, the new Node6Aggregator is dope..
and yes, the publicity plan is worth a shot, but the fact that numerous blogren actually just blog coz in real essence, they can…
and then eventually end up like Iwaya, or Tumwi anf find out their real deal…
and like Tumwi, i am just saying!
Mr. B2B…’s last blog post..CB4-sequel
sleek on February 3rd, 2009
First off, we’d need a blog specifically for the awards…(maybe i’m a little late and one already exists)…i gather King is being swamped with lotsa suggestions and keeping tabs will be quite a task: I’m willing to help with the coding of the site: my two pence
Second: wikipedia has great info on blog awards:
here:
For those who hate navigating away, the page says(among other things)
-Nominees are usually accepted from anyone in the Internet given the one who nominates adhere to given policies and procedures.
-These nominees are scanned by a selected team of judges.
-The filtered nominees are then announced online or by other means such as newspaper or radio stations. Other bloggers or Internet users are given the opportunity to vote
The site goes on to list great blog awards:
-http://2008.weblogawards.org/ are mentioned
Also, I stumbled upon Irish blog awards and
canadian blog awards.
These could give our discussions more perspective..
Carlo on February 16th, 2009
Am I really late? I mean the last suggestion was about two weeks ago. So, what did y’all come up with? When will Lucy go on TV and talk about blogs? And when will Liz discuss us on radio. Banange me I’m not leaving Sanyu Breakfast show which means. And when will the article come out in the papers? We have so many journalists who are bloggers, editors too a la Baz, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
My one suggestion is it is so very unfair to exclude previous winners from the competition. Concerned Party, Tumwi’s not the best blogger out there (you know I love you Tumwi) and her being as good as she is can be beaten. Not including her in the competition might make her not write as good as she does next time she does. And sure there must be better pictures than Scarlet Lion (I’m yet to find some) but we can’t exclude her too. Wait, she’s left the country so technically we can. But that’s my 2 cents worth.
bhh coming up and other announcements - The Rogue King on February 24th, 2009
[...] Hour will be this Thursday, 27th February. Darlyne insists that we all come ready to discuss the Uganda Best of Blog Awards. We need to pave a way forward. Tumwijuke, it would be great to have you [...]