Blogs: The 2003 Bloggies: Vote Now

Well, the nomination stage of the 2003 Bloggies has finished and now it’s time to vote!

Yes, I know this appears to be old news already, but in all fairness, I did see the voting page before I left for work this morning (I in fact checked it before I went to bed, but it hadn’t yet been updated) – but I didn’t have time in the morning to actually blog about it.

Much to my disgust and disappointment, I didn’t make it into the final voting stage. Drat 🙁 Oh well, there’s next year to hope for.

So – who did I vote for and why?

In the category of “Best Meme” (a replicating idea that spread about weblogs), it was a hard choice between BlogChalking and BlogTree. I voted for BlogTree as I’ve found it a little bit more interesting and useful than BlogChalking.

In the category of “Best Weblog Directory Or Update Monitor”, it was again a hard choice between Blo.gs, WebLogs, BlogRolling and MIT’s Blogdex. I’ve found Blogdex slightly interesting, but lacking “something” (mainly information about who links to my blog – I’ve been listed on Blogdex since the end of November and yet ‘Links to this weblog’ is still blank – links from, however, number 702). I find Blogrolling extremely useful (I’m even a fully paid up subscriber and I’m thinking of contributing a little bit to the code system), but it is “fed” by data on blo.gs and weblogs.com so without them Blogrolling.com wouldn’t exist. I ended up voting for Blogrolling.com anyway as I think Jason (the guy that runs it) would find a way of getting it working anyway if anything happened to blo.gs or weblogs.com. Oh, and since I had nominated Blogrolling, I suppose it would have been “bad form” anyway to not later vote for it.

For the category of “Best Web Application For Weblogs”, it was a choice for me between Blogrolling.com and MovableType. MT got my vote as I doubt I’d be running my blog if it wasn’t for MT (again, I’m a fully paid up subscriber/member of MT). Yes, I could use other web publishing tools (from hand writing HTML, to using LiveJournal or Blogger, another content management system or build one of my own) – but MT (who I actually nominated for in this category) currently does everything I want/need, has expansion potential, easy to install and use yadda yadda yadda.

Firda over at Weblog Wannabe got my vote for the “Best Asian Weblog” and Textism got it for “Best European Or African Weblog” – mainly because those were the only two sites in those categories that I recognise (Firda got extra points as I frequently read Weblog Wannabe – hence why it’s on my blogroll).

I recognised two entries in “Best American Weblog” – A Small Victory and Big Pink Cookie. I’m a regular reader of both sites, but I decided to give Christine of BPC my vote as I find her blog more interesting, stimulating and varied – ASV is a good read, but if you aren’t at all interested in war or politics related blogs, then stay away.

Davezilla was my choice for “Best non-weblog content of a weblog site” – admittedly I had also heard of Picture Yourself (as it’s run by Christine of Big Pink Cookie), but at the moment I don’t “get” photo collection blogs. Maybe if I looked into them a bit more I would but… Davezilla has funnier posts anyway 🙂

I had heard of every entry bar one in the “Best Programming of a weblog site” category (“Comments, sorting, customisation, homemade stuff you like to see in a weblog.”) – Textism, ScriptyGoddess, Metafilter and Kuro5hin. I wouldn’t really class Kuro5hin as a blog site, it’s more a techy news site in my eyes (Slashdot users, my self included, often refer to it as “that other site”). Metafilter I’ve visited around twice and then not for long. But ScriptyGoddess got my vote as it’s a site I frequently visit, has good informative posts and covers a wideish range of topics. Plus they’ve linked to my blog a couple of times – which is always good for “bonus points” 🙂

“A Small Victory” got my vote in “Best Weblog About Politics” for precisely the same reason it didn’t got my vote in “Best American Weblog”.

I felt a bit bad giving ScriptyGoddess my vote in “Best Web Development Weblog” (Weblogs completely about web design and development) as I had voted for them in “Best Programming of a weblog site” – but I do frequent ScriptyGoddess more often than Girlie’s Tips And Tricks… The other three sites I’ve heard about, but I just haven’t got round to visiting yet. ScriptyGoddess also got a third vote for me in the “Best Group Or Community Weblog” category.

Slashdot was nearly my choice in “Best Computers Or Technology weblog”, but is it really a weblog? To me, a weblog has one or more contributors – Slashdot’s member base ranks in the thousands and it’s more like a “news community”/”web based mailing list” to me. Chris Pirillo got my vote as I do occasionally visit his site and find his posts quite interesting (I’m a huge fan of his wife’s – Gretchen – blog as well: so if I can’t vote for here, I may as well give my vote to her hubby). I don’t like Chris’ new blog design though – I hate reading “handwriting” style stuff.

Meredith (aka fellow ODP editor ‘etoile’) is putting forward a price in the “Best Reviews Or Weblog about Weblogs” category where I’ve voted for Blogroots. It’s the only service/site on that list that I’ve heard about, plus I sort of contribute to it. Every time I make an entry (like this one) in my “Net: Blogging” category, MovableType automatically updates BlogRoots with my post.

I voted for Kymberlie’s Neurotic Fish Bowl in the “Best Designed Weblog” category – even after checking the other sites. I did quite like the look of PlasticBag.org, but Kym’s is slightly better (I think I’m just more ‘used to it’). Of course, I think my blog has the best design of all – but that’s because I’ve tweaked it to be how I like it.

It was close between Blog Anon and “Ed K” in the “Best Kept Secrets” bloggies category – my vote went to Blog Anon as it’s not quite a secret to me (mainly due to Robyn over at “Ain’t Too Proud To Blog” aka Tampa Tantrum – which I always read as “Temper Tantrum”) and a good pair of breasts go far with me. Nooo – I’m not really that shallow, but the blog itself it a good read. I don’t normally like the “big banners” at the top of a blog as, with most sites, I go there for the content – but Blog Anon has content worth scrolling down for.

Kymberlie got another vote for The Neurotic Fishbowl in the category “Best New Weblog” (Weblogs that began during the year 2002). She started on the 27th of January – nearly a year ago, perhaps if I had started mine then instead of in November I would have had more visitors and hence been in the finals.

And who did I vote for in the all important “Best Weblog of the year”? Out of the choices, I picked Davezilla. Because it’s a site I enjoy going back to, it’s got interesting content and I like it.

Just because I didn’t vote for your weblog doesn’t mean I didn’t like it. I just felt that another web log appealed to me slightly me in the category in question. Plus the fact that most of the sites I nominated didn’t actually make it to the finals 🙁

Voting closes at the end of the month and winners will be announced in March – so you’ve got 9 more days to get your vote in…