The 2005 edition — the Deutsche Welle International Weblog Awards 2005 — was the second running of The BOBs and the first to partner with Reporters Without Borders. More than 2,500 blogs and podcasts were entered between 1 and 30 September 2005; eight finalists per category were announced on 24 October, and more than 100,000 public votes were cast over the final four weeks.

There were 13 categories: four general ones — Best Weblog, Best Multimedia Blog, Best Podcast and the Reporters Without Borders Award — plus nine language categories (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish), each with a Jury award and a User award.

Winners 2005

  • Best Weblog (Jury): Más respeto, que soy tu madre — the Spanish language novel blog mixing telenovela and comedy; the prize was an Apple iBook G4
  • Best Weblog (User): Tupiniquim (Portuguese)
  • Reporters Without Borders Award (Jury): Manal and Alaa’s Bit Bucket — announced early, on 14 November 2005, in protest at censorship of nominees ahead of the UN internet summit in Tunis
  • Reporters Without Borders Award (User): Chronique déplaisante d’une dictature ordinaire
  • Best Multimedia Blog (Jury and User): Blog à la ciboulette
  • Best Podcast (Jury and User): Antiwave
  • Arabic: Hawleyat Al Ashjar (Jury) / Nisrine coeur de lion (User)
  • Chinese: Massage Cream (Jury) / Fei Dao Ce Pan Qian Fan Guo (User)
  • English: Global Voices (Jury) / Body and Soul (User)
  • French: AgoraVox (Jury) / Lire est un plaisir (User)
  • German: Lyssa’s Lounge (Jury) / Riesenmaschine (User)
  • Persian: Zan Nevesht (Jury) / Iran Paparazzi (User)
  • Portuguese: NoMínimo (Jury) / Kibe Loco (User)
  • Russian: Planet Afghanistan (Jury and User)
  • Spanish: Jabalí Digital (Jury) / Caspa TV (User)

The 2005 jury

Twelve members: Ammar Abdulhamid (Syria), Michael Anti / Zhao Jing (China), Yegor Bykovsky (Russia), Hossein Derakhshan (Iran), Ignacio Escolar (Spain), Jörg Kantel (Germany), Konstantin Klein (Germany), Loïc Le Meur (France), André Lemos (Brazil), José Luis Orihuela (Spain), Julien Pain (France, Reporters Without Borders), Lisa Stone (USA).

Media partners

Reporters Without Borders, CBC.ca, Handelsblatt.com, LeMonde.fr, Clarín.com, Folha Online, Shargh Newspaper, Lenta.ru, Iran-Emrooz.net and Phoenix TV.

The original 2005 site is preserved in the Internet Archive.

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TheBoBs.com today is an independent blog directory. This page is an editorial archive honoring The BOBs award (2004–2016), which was created and run by Deutsche Welle. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by Deutsche Welle. Original pages are preserved in the Internet Archive.