The sixth edition of the BOBs – Deutsche Welle’s international blog awards – is entering its final stages.
The voting period begins on March 15, 2010. All nominated blogs are presented on the BOBs Web site (www.thebobs.com). There, visitors can find information about the blogs and help award the public prize by submitting their vote. The choice is large. This year, there are 17 competition categories and 11 languages – adding up to 187 nominated blogs, podcasts and videoblogs. Voting ends on April 14, 2010.
Once again, many users from around the world have expressed their preferences, submitting nearly 8,300 suggestions for the competition. The international jury panel – which consists of prominent bloggers – nominated 11 candidates in each category. This year there are six mixed-language categories (Best Weblog, Best Videoblog, Best Podcast, Reporters Without Borders Award, Blogwurst Award and Special Award Climate Change).
The other 11 categories are connected to specific languages: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, German, English, Farsi, French, Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
A new element in this year’s BOBs is the category Special Award Climate Change. Its goal is to recognize international blogs on the topic of climate change. A new feature this year is the cooperation between the BOBs and re:publica – Germany’s largest blogger and Internet conference. The BOBs judging session will coincide with re:publica in Berlin, and this year’s BOBs winners will be announced at re:publica during a public event on April 15.