We have become increasingly critical of the SA Blog Awards, the organisation of it having become so bad that we have decided to not enter again unless the organiser JP Naude is not involved anymore.  The winners and runner-up list contains largely unknown blogs.

We first entered the SA Blog Awards in 2010, in which year we made the Top 10 ‘Most Controversial Blog‘ shortlist.   In that year Will Mellor (better known as his alias Seth Rotherham of no longer vibey 2Oceansvibe) won almost every category (there were many more in those days), even though 2Oceansvibe could never be described as a blog!  He was a co-organiser of the Awards the following year, and seems to no longer be involved.  We have criticised former Good Hope FM sport presenter JP’s role as organiser and co-ordinator, not being a blogger!  JP cannot write to save his life, as this classic paragraph on his website www.jpnaude.com illustrates:  ‘During this time JP worked for Mr Tokyo Sexwale and succesfully managed the Bastille Festival as well as the launch of the Nelson Mandela statue at The Drakenstein prison where for president Nelson Mandel (sic) was released from‘!

Every year the announcement of the SA Blog Awards is later and later, and feels like an afterthought, and so too it was this year.  Being on their mailing list, we received an e-mail to announce the Awards competition, and requesting one to enter.  We were sent the SA Blog Awards voting badge to add to our blog.  None of the few e-mails from the SA Blog Awards identified the name of the writer of the e-mails.  One was referred to the website www.sablogawards.com for further information.  We were informed that nothing had changed relative to last year.  Sadly the one week voting period co-incided with the period of mourning for the late Mr Mandela, which changed the Social Media habits in a period of sorrow, no bloggers pushing to obtain votes for their blogs.  Many blog readers appeared to have gone on leave when the schools broke up already, meaning that fewer loyal blog readers were available to vote.

But the weirdest aspect of the SA Blog Awards was that there has been no communication from the organiser since we were sent the badge, not to announce the end of the voting period, nor to thank us for our participation, nor to announce the winners of the categories and their two runners-up!

The list of judges includes sport ‘mates’ Breyton Paulse, Chester Williams, and Paul Adams, as well as a rugby  person (to judge just one Sport Blog category out of the 13 blog categories in total), crass comedian Rob van Vuuren, and some news reporters. Chefs Jenny Morris and Neill Anthony (misspelling his name, something he is very sensitive about), as well as Johan van Tonder of Cybercellar.com, judging the Best Food or Wine Blog category, clearly having missed the poor spelling of one of the three finalists in this category!). Category winner Yuppiechef pushes its products on its blog, a surprise, because that is the anthisises of blogging!

The list of winners and the runners-up are the following.  What I Drank Last Night by Christian Eedes is the only blog we know and have read!   In the past a prize-giving party was held at the One&Only Cape Town, but there are no Tweets from the SA Blog AWards to reflect any celebration, or what the prizes, if any, may have been!

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter: @WhaleCottage

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