The South African Blog Awards

by Muhammad Karim

On April 2nd, The South African Blog Awards were held in Cape Town to a great turnout of bloggers and also some very inspired winners. This is a summary of posts about the award from South African bloggers.
Both Eish! and 123 Blog Myself attended the event.

123 Blog Myself:
I just got home after attending this year’s blog awards ceremony at the UCT Tennis Club. What a great turnout! It was great putting some faces to the names and the blogs, and meeting a whole bunch of awesome new people. I am especially psyched about finally meeting Chris from iMod.co.za, CJC from Riply.co.za and Revolving Credit from The Big Wheel face to face.

It is only by a miraculous sequence of tiny miracles that I managed to:
* (A) leave at work on time for a change
* (B) Actually find the blasted tennis club despite the directions, and
* (C) find my home again afterwards.
I’d like to say a special thanks to Roxie who showed me the way there, and to Riply for being such an angel to show me how to get back on the highway again afterwards. Thank you - you guys ROCK!

Eish!:
The SA Blog Awards has progressed to become a significant event in the online calendar year. The packed out venue last night attests to this, as does the fact that finalists and interested parties flew in from around the country to be there.
The event has sufficiently informal as one expects from this community and there was more than enough time before and after the ‘ceremony' to mingle with fellow bloggers, media and those that had an interest in the web.

When the ceremony began promptly at 7:30, the finalists were surprised to hear that besides being able to sport the ‘SA Blog Awards 2008′ graphic on their page for a year, there were actual physical prizes they could take home with them. There was wine from Warwick Estate, an indigenous tree from Stodels, Dell sponsored some categories with a flat screen monitor and Microsoft gave away a Xbox360 to the overall winner. And suddenly things became just a wee little more intense!

Without a doubt the big winners were Durban's East Coast Radio who, along with the other big winner Mail and Guardian have embraced the blogging medium and it seems to paying dividends, not only at the SA Blog Awards, but by increasing their reach into South African society. While ‘mainstream media' made a huge impression at this years awards, there was still more than enough space for the smaller guys to pick up awards. In fact, having the big boys doing so well made the victories of the others that much sweeter and it was great to see the excitement and genuine pride these winners exuded for the rest of the evening.

While there was the odd good natured murmuring about the mainstream onslaught this year, there was none of the vitriol that seemed to emanate after last year's awards.
All in all, it was a great evening. Well done to the winners, and to those who missed out, it's time to up the ante!

And the winners are …
South African Weblog of the Year
The Best of the Best from South Africa
Winner:
thoughtleader.co.za
Most Humorous South African Blog
Witty, comical and written to induce uncontrollable laughter
Winner:
blog.ecr.co.za/breakfast
Best Overseas South African Blog
Best blog written by a South African in any foreign country
Winner:
cooksister.typepad.com
Best SA Blog about Politics
The best SA blog featuring mainly a political theme
Winner:
thoughtleader.co.za
Best New Blog
Best blog which was started during the year of 2007
Winner:
blog.ecr.co.za/newswatch

Mike Stopforth congratulates the organisers:
The event was held at the UCT Tennis Club and was very well attended by folks from all walks of life. Huge congrats go to Jon Cherry and his team for organising the event out of the goodness of his heart (all that where there would have noted that Jon never once promoted Cherryflava or Cherrypicka).
Vincent Maher, one of the winners in the News Category, writes:
Don’t I feel like an idiot - at the last minute Matt and I had to cancel our plans to go to Cape Town tonight for the SA Blog Awards and we won 4 awards - Matthew Buckland won best business blog, Amatomu won best site promoting blogs and Thought Leader won best political blog and blog of the year. I feel pretty foul about missing the party and the celebrations but very happy for the recognition.

The person who probably deserves the most thanks in all of this is Riaan Wolmarans, the Thought Leader editor who is the most over-worked person I know right now [except for the hamster powering my laptop during power outages].
And finally… CherryFlava gave their thanks to all the sponsors and people who had made the event possible.
All in all it was a great event and a sign of greater things to come for the South African Blog Awards and South African Bloggers alike. Looking forward to 2009.

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