Charles Wright geek in residence at smh.com reflects on being part of a judging panel for Australia’s best blog:
Having sponsored a $10,000 prize for “Australia’s best blog”, Razor can’t blame SmartyHost for wanting to get as much mileage as possible out of the event. It describes the winner, Australian artist Jodi Rose’s Bridge Girl Travelling Diary as “an excellent example of the unlimited nature of blogs”.It’s a highly original site. But is it Australia’s best blog? Razor was on the judging panel, and while it was in our top three, it didn’t get our No. 1 vote. In fact, only two members of the judging panel voted it No. 1. It took the prize only because one of the judges gave it a total of 40 points – by far the most generous award by any judge – and the other 35 points. And both those judges marked between six and seven of the final 11 sites much lower than the other judges. …In our opinion, there should have been some effort to standardise the points. If that had happened, the probable winner would have been Looby Lu or Trollhattansaab.We were the only judge who gave our top award to Karen Cheng’s blog. That was five more than the highest points awarded by any of the other judges.
These are great blogs – more personal and quirky than the type we are engaging with but lovely creations none-the-less.
