In just a little over a week, you’ve sent in over 1,000 suggestions for the best blogs, online initiatives and sites to our contest. Thanks!
We’re ready for even more submissions. Can’t decide which category fits the blog you love? Go ahead and submit it in all the categories where you think it belongs.
Thanks to Karsten Kneese for the CC photo.
Starting today, we’re ready for your submissions to the Deutsche Welle Blog Awards.
You can login via Facebook, Twitter, OpenID, and VKontakte, and we’re working on getting things going with Sina Weibo.
So get to it and inundate us with the sites that have impressed you in all the contest’s categories.
Ever get the feeling that social networks can sometimes be so, well, anti-social?
We’re having some technical teething problems with the suggestion app you see above.
But don’t worry, we’re working on it!
That time of year has come around again. Starting on February 13, we’ll be looking for your suggestions for the eighth annual Deutsche Welle International Blog Awards – better known as the BOBs.
Like last year, we’re getting ready to accept your favorite sites in 11 languages. We understand: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesia, Persian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
This year we’re also happy to announce that the BOBs site is back at full strength and available in all 11 of the competition’s languages — in fact, we’re putting the finishing touches on the site right now!
While there are some changes in store for 2012, including a couple of new faces on the jury panel (more about them soon), the BOBs will still feature a Jury Awards as well as User Prizes. The combination of online voting and jury-selected winners makes sure the BOBs continues to honor the best blogs, websites and campaigns on the Internet without turning into a popularity contest.
This year our jury of media experts, activists and bloggers will meet up in Berlin in May to debate and decide who takes home top honors in the BOBs. Patricia Cammarata, better known as das Nuf, joins the panel for German and Steve Vosloo comes on-board for the English-speaking world. We’ll be giving you a more intimate introduction to Patricia and Steve, as well as the rest of the jury members, in just a few days time.
Highly cultured and well educated
For the most part, the 17 categories in the contest this time around are the same as they always have been. Six categories are multilingual and feature blogs from each of the contest’s 11 languages mixing it up together for the right to call themselves a BOBs winner. Each of the remaining 11 categories is dedicated to a single language and a winner will be chosen among the finalists by online vote alone.
This year our “Special Topic Award” puts the spotlight on culture and education. This is also the focus of the 2012 Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn. While we will certainly continue to commend the bloggers taking a stand for freedom of expression, we’ll also be playing special attention to projects and initiatives that look at the right to education and promote intercultural dialogue.
Get your suggestions in!
We want to hear from you – but you’ll have to get you message to us between February 13 and March 13. That’s when the window is open for suggestions to the BOBs 2012.
You’ll be able to suggest candidates in all 17 categories after registering using Facebook, Twitter, VKontakte or Sina Weibo or using your OpenID. We’re hoping this helps open the BOBs up to countries where the usual social network suspects aren’t necessarily the most popular services.
And just as a quick reminder: It doesn’t matter how many times a blog is suggested to the BOBs – once it’s in, it’s in. Unlike other awards, the number of times a site is suggested does not play a role in whether it advances to the next round.
Timeline takeaways
February 13 to March 13: Suggest the blogs, websites and projects that impress you.
April 2 to May 2: Look over the nominees and in each category and vote for the ones you think represent the best of the best.
May 2: Sit back and find out who won as we announce the winners.
June 26: Come to Bonn, Germany, and meet the Jury Award winners at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum.
Yoani Sanchez, theBOBs winner in 2008 for her blog, has won BlogHer‘s International BlogHer Activist Award. Now there’s a blogging campaign underway to convince Cuban authorities that Yoani should be allowed to leave the country to take part in the BlogHer conference next month in San Diego.
When Yoani won theBOBs three years ago, we also would have loved to have been able to host her. Instead we got this video message:
Yoani continues to be an inspiration to everyone at theBOB, so we hope you’ll take part and – at the very least – let Yoani know you support her. We certainly think she should be able to travel to the conference – and anywhere else she wants to go, anytime she wants to go there.
Find out more and take part: Let’s blog Yoani to BlogHer
Six winners of the 2011 come to Bonn, Germany, on Monday to accept their awards at a ceremony, which was part of the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum. Get a look at the Jury Award winners in the BOBs’ six multilingual categories below.
What are the BOBs about?
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
At least that's what they are according to Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But does it really apply to people all over the world.
Deutsche Welle examines the international status of human rights in an in-depth special looking at how people are treated – and mistreated around the world. A series of reports look at people's ability to eat, work and live with dignity in a globalized world. Additional commentary comes from Tunisia's Lina Ben Mhenni, this year's BOBs winner for Best Blog, as well as Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez, who won the Best Blog award in 2008.
The importance of social media when it comes to political activism was the topic of a public discussion at the Deutsche Welle on April 12. While the media have been filled with reports about how Facebook and Twitter influenced uprisings, we think it's worth the time to listen to what the people affected by the protests have to say.
Have a listen to these statements by BOBS jury members Amira Al Hussaini of Bahrain, Isaac Mao from China, and Erik Hersman of Kenya. The discussion was moderated by DW's Kristin Zeier.
It's been an exciting competition. Back in February we asked for your suggestions for the world's best blog, social media campaign and video channel – among others. And you came through with thousands of submissions.
Our jury narrowed the pack down to an impressive list of finalists in 17 categories and 11 languages.
Voting was opened to decide the winners of the User Prizes, and you were allowed to vote once a day. Jury members, on the other hand, had to sit at their computers and ponder which of each category's 11 finalists – all worthy of distinction – would get their vote for the BOBs highest honors: the Jury Award.
This year, after a passionate day of discussions, the jury bestowed the Best Blog award on A Tunisian Girl.
Writing bravely about repression and censorship in Tunisia long before the international media descended on the country during the tumultuous events of December 2010 and January 2011, Lina Ben Mhenni was praised by the jury for proving that a single moving voice can lead to major change. The certainty that she would also continue to track Tunisia's path – and stay true to her vision in the future – also left the jury members impressed.
Other Jury Award honors went to:
Best Use of Technology for Social Good: Rospil
Best Social Activism Campaign: We Are Khaled Said
Reporters Without Borders Award: Ciudad Juárez, en la sombra del narcotráfico
Special Topic Award for Human Rights: Migrant Rights in the Middle East
Best Video Channel: Stands With Fist
Our congratulations go out to all the Jury Award winners and the blogs and projects that claimed the User Prizes by receiving the most ballots in our online vote.
All of this year's Jury Award winners will be invited to accept their awards at a ceremony at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum on June 20.
Thank you for an interesting, exciting and successful competition.
Update: English press release
Thanks to Pete Prodoehl for the CC picture!
