Today is a good day because I get to announce The First European Weblog Awards. The purpose of the awards is to recognize the efforts and contributions of Europe’s many talented bloggers, to maybe help build a sense of community among us, and, more than anything, it’s a chance for people to discover lots of new good blogs.
Also, awards are fun.
Categories chronologically:
Thursday:
Best European Weblog Overall
Best Political Weblog
Best UK Blog
Friday:
Nominees for Best French Weblog
Nominate Best New Weblog
Nominees for Best German Blog
Saturday:
Nominate Best Non-European Weblog
Nominate Best Culture Weblog
Nominate Best Tech Weblog
Nominees for Best Personal Weblog
Sunday
Nominees for Best Expat Blog
Best Coverage of A Single Country or Region
Nominate Most Underappreciated Weblog
Monday
Nominees for Best Coverage of the European Union
Nominees for Best Southeastern European Weblog
Nominees for Best CIS blog
Nominees for Best Writing
Rules:
You can nominate as many blogs as you like. Please don’t be shy about nominating your own blog.
There’ll be a post for each category. Nominations should preferably be in the form of comments or trackbacks to the relevant post.
Only European blogs are elegible. By that we mean that the blog should be written by Europeans, or else focus on some European issue. (Czech, Catalan…)
This weblog is not eligible for any awards, but our contributors’ other blogs are.
The nominating phase will go on for several weeks. The finalists will be determined by the number of nominations and our discretion.
We’ll introduce categories gradually during the day, and maybe tomorrow throughout the week. I will update this post with links to the nomination posts.
List of categories:
Nominate Best New Weblog
Nominees for Best Expat Blog
Nominate Most Underappreciated Weblog
Nominees for Best Writing
By region
Best Coverage of A Single Country or Region
Best UK Blog
Nominees for Best French Weblog
Nominate Best Non-European Weblog
Nominees for Best German Blog
Nominees for Best CIS blog
Nominees for Best Southeastern European Weblog
By subject matter
Best Political Weblog
Nominate Best Culture Weblog
Nominate Best Tech Weblog
Nominees for Best Personal Weblog
Nominees for Best Coverage of the European Union
Except they are not the first European weblog awards…
That’s interesting. What are the first?
If not the first European weblog awards, they are still the The First European Weblog Awards.
Why not just use this site’s blogroll as nominees? Or supplement this by asking for suggestions that aren’t on the list but deserve consideration?
If that’s too unwieldy, perhaps AFoE contributors could pick their favorites..
Well, for one thing we’d like to discover new blogs, as I said. We could have more categories in the competition than in the nominating phase.
There is a great French blog Le journal de Momo
Very funny, very topical, very sociable.
http://www.lejournaldemomo.com
404 Brain not Found
http://www.404brain.net
Beerli, you need to pick a category and vote in the corresponding post, for example the Best French Blog category.
I would like to nominate my blog for the efforts of my fellow contributors to the blog. (www.andrewiandodge.com) for UK blog and Fainting in Coyles (http://terrancecoyle.blogspot.com/) for European blog.
Hi there, I would like to add my (french) blog to the relevant category (wich would, I assume, be “french blogs”).
http://www.atabekian.com
Kindly yours,
Christophe Atabekian
where’s the italian section?
Cabalamat Journal
I’d love to nominate a couple of expat blogs… but I’m not sure they qualify anywhere.
For example, The Sideshow and Axis of AEvil, which are written by Americans living in the UK and Finland, respectively.
Not to mention Sadly, No!, Pedantry, et al.
I think there needs to be a “Best Expat Blog” category.
I’ve actually thought about it, but then I probably thought of forty different categories, and we can’t have that. So, we’ll think about it.
I need to update the blogroll with your new url.
I second the call for a best expat blog category. It is very refreshing to read about a “foreigner’s” perspective on your own country. Expats are bridges between cultures. Also, it would be a category largely untapped by many of the already existing awards.
If you consider such a category, I’d nominate Silt (http://www.silt3.com/) and Foreign Notes (http://foreignnotes.blogspot.com/).
O, and Europhobia (http://europhobia.blogspot.com/) for best European blog.
The anal retentive in me is greatly bothered by people nominating blogs in this post.
By Popular Request
bah
bah opet
where’s the italian section (reprise)?
The Glory of Carniola
which can be found on: http://www.carniola.org
I’d really like to see a category for Eastern European blogs. I don’t think there are enough (English language) blogs for many of these countries to have their own individual category, but there are plenty of high quality blogs out there covering the region or parts of it.
If you do add this category, I’d like to nominate a few weblogs right off the bat:
The Russian Dilettante
Blogo Slovo
All About Latvia
Glory of Carniola
Scraps of Moscow
Baltic Blog
And, of course, I’d try to find space for my own blog – Siberian Light
That’s just a few off the top of my head, and perhaps a little heavy on the Former Soviet Union, but it’d be a great start.
Hmm, I’m a bit of a techno-incompetent. How do I put hyperlinks in the comments at AFoE?
Actually, now I’ve finally (it’s early AM) put my brain in gear – why not have categories as they are in your blogroll?
Western Europe
Central Europe
Eastern Europe
SouthEast Europe
OK, enough. I’m going to work now.
How about we have a Best Looking Blog catagory? People who have good efficient designs should be encouraged.
Isn’t it amazing how many more people react on an appeal (to name good blogs) if a contest is involved!
I would like to suggest just another category: blogging politicians.
Not to be confused with political bloggers.
I have a post on my site “The dilemma of the independent blogging politician” that explains the difference between political bloggers and blogging politicians, the need for blogging politicians as well as the reasons why my own blog, although in this category, unfortunately does not qualify for a high rating there: Link to that specific post
PS: although I know that my own English is not very good, the idea of comparing blogs in all European languages seems impossible to me. How many members of the jury have sufficient knowledge of the Slovenian language? Or Polish. Or French even. I’m afraid we should confine ourselves to blogs (mainly) in English.
Hi Everybody,
There is a great Hungarian (English language) blog all about the Budapest social scene and goings-on that I would like to nominate. Pestiside.hu is alternately darkly comedic, sardonic, insightful and sometimes even hysterically funny. It takes the piss out of all elements in Hungarian political spectrum as well as other absurb aspects of Hungarian life. (Believe you me, there is a plethora of absurdity in everyday Hungarian life.) If you have lived/live anywhere in Central-Eastern Europe, you can appreciate Pestiside.hu.
Their take on quasi-oligarch Elek Straub was fuckin’ priceless!
Laters,
AP
near near future
http://we-make-money-not-art.com
Hmmm.. I’d love to nominate the Swedish styleguide for men, which looks yummy, is funny and is European. 😉 But it doesn’t seem to fit in any category. (is style==culture? Naaah.)
http://manolo.se/
I am very inexperienced in blogs and I do not dare to vote. But your blog has been very useful and interesting to me. Thanks.