On Friday White African asked the question Where are the African Blogs? He was referring to the fact that at the time he could not find any African blogs nominated for The Bobs (Best of the Blogs) a major blog awards initiative currently on the go. I thought I would brings this closer to home and ask why no South African nominations? Actually, this is not totally true. I did a check and I see that Rouvanne van den Berg's "Peak People : An inside look" has garnered a nomination, good stuff.

I decided that I would add to the rather small list and nominate a blog from South Africa. Making the decision to only nominate one I have struggled to figure out which one it will be. I realised that a massively high percentage of blogs I read emanate from South Africa. I very rarely find the need (and the time) to venture out into the international blogosphere.
So this must mean that there are many quality blogs around, the SA Blog Awards and 50 top SA blogs campaign attest to this as well.
... but still the map on the front page of The BOBs awards site has this massive empty space on the African continent and South Africa in particular, making the lack of nominations from this part of the world glaringly and depressingly obvious.

So here's what's required to submit a nomination taken from The Bobs website :

Requirements for the BOBs and the Blogopedia Weblogs, podcasts and videoblogs from around the world can take part in the Deutsche Welle's Best of the Blogs Awards and be listed in the Blogopedia as long as they are produced in one of the contest's 10 official languages (Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Persian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish). Though any and all blogs and 'casts are invited to join the competition, the BOBs will put a special emphasis on Weblogs, podcasts and videocasts that use a journalist's tools of reporting and analysis. Anyone can submit suggestions Whether you blog, pod or videocast yourself or just like to read, hear and see what others are doing, absolutely everyone is invited to suggest blogs to the contest. There is, of course, one exception to what can be entered into the contest: Jury members own blogs, podcasts and videocasts are prohibited from entry in the contest, though they can be listed in the Blogopedia. You can suggest as many blogs / podcasts / videocasts to the contest and Blogopedia as you would like. Simply send us an e-mail if you would like to have your work removed from the BOBs, or Blogopedia.

So let's get the SA Blogosphere onto the map, literally. Submissions will be accepted until the 30th September.

Labels: awards, eish, the bobs

Posted by eishman on Monday, September 10, 2007 at 9:17 AM | Permalink