Nominations Close Midnight Tonight

Nominations close at midnight tonight for the Air New Zealand Best Blog Award**.

After communicating with the Judges the process will now be as follows:

1. Self-nominations with four links will all be sent to the Judges. This allows lesser known blogs to have an increased chance of exposure. All nominees will be posted on this site.

2. The Judges if they wish may nominate one wildcard entry each from the Tumeke top 20 rankings of a blog that has not self-nominated.

3. Each Judge will pick a short list of three finalists.

4. Judges will enter into cordial discussion to get a top three if it is not clear at this point.

5. Three finalists will be named including the winner on 10th July 2010. A summary of their Judging (if they wish) from each Judge along with any special mentions may be submitted for disclosure on this site.

Update on Entries

Thank you to everyone who has entered the Air New Zealand Best Blog Award**. We have received in quick time plenty of entries that reflect a cross section of the New Zealand blogging community.

Remember you have until Tuesday 1st June (next Tuesday) to get your links in to nzbloggersunion@hotmail.com

So far we have received correspondence from many of you as well and I note the following:

1. David Farrar (Kiwiblog) has yet to enter. I have contacted David personally demanding his entry and he kindly declined to enter on the general grounds that he doesn't believe in awards. This will be noteworthy in a memo to the National Party when he is put up for a Knighthood that he doesn't believe in honours like that.

I mention this solely as those of you who think David will automatically win so there is no point of entering, can be safe in the knowledge that he's piked out thus far.

2. I sense an overwhelming preciousness from some bloggers about entering anything. I interpret that as you are all afraid of losing so lord knows how any of you are actually successful in life. Well get over it as apart from one winner everyone else will technically be losers. But not as bigger losers as good blogs that do not enter.

3. More comments were made that visitor numbers will find a winner. That is a fallacy. We have brought Tim Selwyn in as a Judge because he is experienced in providing a measured rating system, but there are not four other Tim Selwyn's on the panel. All are free to judge their finalists any way they want to. We have no idea who will win because of this.

4. Some dim comment was made that the awards favoured "shock" blogs because they get more attention. A silly comment given the entries we have received thus far. Even New Zealand's Howard Stern of the blogging community (guess who) has entered four very measured and composed posts.

5. Finalist in the Qantas Best Blog Awards are free to enter the Air New Zealand Best Blog Award** and one already has done so. We accept nominations from all-comers, even complete dickwads.

6. Another comment was that the self-nomination process required you to rate yourself highly enough to enter. I answer that by saying, how can anyone else be expected to think you are any good if you don't?

Harden up and enter.

Air New Zealand Best Blog Award**

Here in New Zealand we believe in fairness, in playing by the rules that have been set upfront and in meaning what we say so that everyone has a fair go.

It has been brought to our attention that the Qantas Media Awards 2010 represent anything but that. It has got under our skins.



This does not surprise us since Qantas is an airline that still has business class beds that frustratingly do not lie flat and they charge similar or in many cases more expensive fares than airlines that give you a good night's sleep up the front. They still insult various long-haul routes lacking the competition of an Air New Zealand by having even older fit-outs that in many cases sell business class seats to customers that resemble Grandpop's creaky old lazy-boy with air hosties way less friendly and useful than Grandma. We pity from across the common area, anyone having to wait at Auckland International Airport in their lounge!

Lets face it Qantas is yesterday's airline flying yesterday's media awards. And they are Australian. Which in itself explains the deficiency in playing by rules against honesty Kiwis.

Good heavens the awards still ask for typewritten entry forms, editorial approval and do not allow submission via links to an email address.

The Best Blog of the Year award was meant to be a departure from 2009 where branded corporate blogs from Fairfax were named as finalists. Blogs that did nothing to add to the brand of news or current affairs that the awards night are meant to celebrate.

Moata Tamaira - aka the Librarian
Greer McDonald - aka the generation Y who now blogs wondering how she got $50,000 in debt
Adam Brown - A sports blogger

This year's finalists are just as bad. It has been alleged quite correctly that the three finalists do not even meet Qantas' own criteria and should be disqualified.

So in the spirit of giving everyone a fair go, we have taken this mild mannered rural lady's suggestion, gathered forces across the blogging community and created the "Air New Zealand Best Blog Award".

What are we are looking for?

The competition will be judged by the same criteria that the Qantas Best Blog Award was meant to be judged and it is only open to blogs "primarily dedicated to reporting news or views on news". We don't care about your personal finances, how your baby is doing or how wonderful your husband is for putting out the rubbish.

The judges will seek to recognise how content generated by the blog’s community of readers is incorporated into coverage of a story or particular subject. Examples could include reader generated comment, photographs, news tips etc.

So how do you enter?

No need for a silly form. Just like any modern airline, you can book everything online. No need to send a nomination form off in the post to have it passed through several sets of hands at the mercy of human competence, here at the Air New Zealand Best Blog Award, we only require that you:

1. Pick your four best samples of work in the calendar year 2009 that define your blog; and
2. Forward links to nzbloggersunion@hotmail.com

Do not make a pitch to us, Kiwis don't do that.

Like The Listener, we are not listening. We believe that your four links should speak for themselves.

Who will be judging you?

The Judging Panel will consist of a balanced mix of political, media and social commentators and professionals including Tumeke's Tim Selwyn, the creator of the first New Zealand blog ranking system:

Matthew Hooton - right wing extremist, political commentator and co-owner of PR agency Exceltium;
Martyn "Bomber" Bradbury - left wing extremist, media commentator and radio and TV host, co-author of Tumeke;
Ricardo Simich - director of One Agency, marketing and events specialists;

Tim Selwyn - creator of the first NZ blog ranking system, co-author of Tumeke; and
Regan Cunliffe - doesn't need to pimp himself as a social media guru, he runs Throng Media, a global network of Television websites and ffunnell, an ad network for independent publishers.

No representatives or lackeys of "old media" in that lot and we have tried to cover all political spectrums so there is no accusations of bias.


The winner will be crowned Air New Zealand Best Blog and carry with that the aura in the blogging community of being better than the Qantas Best Blog.

Important Dates

Entries close on 1st of June 2010 and because we always come ahead of Qantas and the old media, the winner will be announced on Thursday 10th of June 2010.

** And yeah Rob Fyfe didn't really say that and Air New Zealand are not really sponsoring the award but creative license has never stopped old media making shit up either.