The BOBs: And the winners are… · Global Voices
Jillian C. York

You've waited with bated breath.  You've sat by your computer.  Perhaps you've even flown to Berlin…that's right, Berlin, where the awards ceremony for The BOBs (Best of Blogs), a competition hosted by Deutsche Welle and co-sponsored by Global Voices, was held November 15.  At the ceremony, the results were announced – the winner of this years top award is Xenia Awimova, a 23 year-old aspiring photojournalist who lives and works in the Belarusian capital of Minsk.
Her blog, Foto-Griffaneurei (literally translated to “Photo-Maniac”) highlights her black and white photographs of life in and around Minsk.
Christian Gramsch, Program Director at Deutsche Welle, said of the blog: “With few words this excellent blog succeeds in portraying the daily life of people in Belarus.”  Awimova herself, upon hearing of the award, explained her blog's success: “In Belarus there are not many independent newspapers or other platforms where people can express their opinions.  That is why a lot of young people write in their blogs.”
Alive in Baghdad, a popular video blog about daily life in the Iraqi capital, was also honored with the Best Videoblog award. The winner of the Best English Blog award was Valour-IT, a blog that raises money to buy laptops for injured American soldiers.
A special Reporters Without Borders prize was awarded to anonymous blogger Jotman, whose coverage of the 2006 coup in Thailand and recent protests in Burma has at times exceeded that of the mainstream news.
The full list of winners for this years Best of Blogs awards are as follows:
Best Weblog: Photo-Maniac
Best Videoblog: Alive in Baghdad
Best Podcast: Die Gefühlskonserve (German)
Blogwurst: Little Galerie (French)
Reporter without Borders: Jotman (Thailand / Burma)
Best Weblog Arabic: Aljazeera Talk
Best Weblog Chinese: Lian Yue's The Eighth Continent
Best Weblog Dutch: Frankwatching
Best Weblog English: Valour IT
Best Weblog French: Actualités de la république démocratique du Congo
Best Weblog German: Behindertenparkplatz
Best Weblog Persian: 35 Grad
Best Weblog Portuguese: Blog do Tas
Best Weblog Russian: /dev/karlson/mind.log
Best Weblog Spanish: A mis 95 años
All in all, about 100,000 users visited The BOBs website to vote for their favorite blogs from over 7,000 weblogs nominees, making this year's awards an enormous success.  So, if you're a blogger, get typing, because next year's awards are less than a year away and you could be a part of it!