South African Blog Awards 2006

Is this thing on?

Welcome…welkom…wamkelekile to the 2nd annual South African blog awards.

Last year’s winners are now a thing of history and the slate has been cleaned for you to once again speak your mind, make your mark and recognise the best in South African blogging.

This year we’ve done away with the categories of ‘Best sports blog’ and ‘Best Environmental blog’, but have replaced them with the new categories of ‘Most humourous SA blog’ and ‘Best SA group blog’.

• A weblog is defined as a page with dated entries.

• The contest is open to any weblogs that existed for
  a period of time during the year 2005, so weblogs that were discontinued during
  2005 are also eligible.

• Only one nomination form and one finalist voting
  form may be submitted per person.

• E-mail addresses are required to vote. You must use
  your own address.

• If you attempt to submit a second ballot, your first
  one will be erased.

The categories:

Blogs can compete for the top honours in the following categories:

South African blog of 2005 - The best of the best from SA

Most humourous South African blog - Leon Schuster online.

Best post on a South African blog - The one post which took game for 2005

Best overseas South African blog - Written by a South African in any foreign country

Best writing on a South African blog - Humour, attention to detail…captivating

Best SA blog about politics - The best SA blog featuring mainly a political theme.

Best SA photographic blog - The best SA blog featuring original photographic content.

Best SA group blog - The best SA blog featuring more than one writer.

Best new blog - Best blog which was started during the year of 2005

Best SA blog about food - The best blog written mainly about food or drink

Best SA blog about tech - Best South African technology focused weblog

Best SA lifestyle blog - Best blog of lifestyle type content

Best design for a blog - Best overall design and layout of a weblog page.

In the nomination phase:

• URLs are required (where applicable).

• The maximum number of weblogs you may nominate for a
  category is three (3) for most categories and four (4) for Weblog of the Year.

• At least three (3) different weblogs in total must be
  nominated. No flogging of one blog for numerous categories.

• You may nominate your own weblog, but the total
  nominations for your own weblog must be less than one third of your total
  (legitimate) nominations.

• There is no limit to the number of categories a
  weblog may be nominated for.

• Nominees have to fit the category they are placed
  in.

• The SA blog awards are about a fair honest democratic process. Should we feel that the system has been loaded to unfairly favour a certain contesting blog, we reserve the right to discard those entries.

These
rules may change at any time, but they probably won’t.

What about prizes?

Apart from the honour of being the best, the winner of the Best overall South
African blog will win a purse of 2006 South African cents (R20.06).

Also,contributors can donate their own prizes to the category of their
choice, and if the contributor has a site, it will be linked from this
page. If the contributor is going to awards ceremony, he/she can also
have the privilege of announcing/presenting the category sponsored at
the ceremony. To donate one, the contributor can bring it to event,
mail it to the winner, or send an online gift certificate or cash to
the winner.

Prizes that are more creative than the R20.06 are
encouraged.

Send an e-mail to get your prize added. Sorry, "to be announced" prizes to reserve categories won’t be accepted. I’ll send out a list of winner’s e-mails to the contributors after they’re announced, but all other prize
arrangements will be handled by their respective donators.

The way forward:

• Final voting will take place on this site from Wednesday 22 February - Friday 3 March 2006.

UPDATE: Nominations are now closed, voting opens on Wednesday 22 February 2006.