No Awards, Yes Newbies

More on this in the NL Blogger's Choice Awards section, but just to let the community know (and visitors) I have decided to cancel the 2012 Blogger's Choice Awards as I personally do not have the time to dedicate to the session right now. Without the nominations flowing in as I hoped they would, the job of getting everything ready is considerably more difficult. I've decided to focus on what I can take care of around these parts over the year, and then get back to this whole award thing at the end of 2013.

PLEASE NOTE that nominations will remain open all year, however. You can leave you choices in any of the applicable threads or email them to nlblogroll @ gmail.com.

NEWBIES ADDED

Now for some good news! I've added a bunch of new blogs to the Blogroll, all of which are listed below. These have all been added to the  main rolls on the right side bar, thier category rolls on the left side bar and on each page of the Category Sections. Be sure to check them out!

Estate Law Canada	Duck? Starfish? but…23
The List	My World in Newfoundland
NL Tires and Wheels	Atlantic Muscle
PikeSpeak	ZNews
Le Boudoir	Vote Andrew Harvey
All I Say	Cornered
of sugar-baited words	Darrin Feehan Photography
Doyle Pitches	sea and light
Photo and Film a Day	coaker's ghost
Insight	George House Kitchen
SUITCASE AND HEELS	Freedom through knowledge
Geo Islander	Busting Out In Love
The Nfld Notebook	The Musings of a Bartender
Simply Handmade	Denim and Dorky Hats
St. John's Kid	Random Island Memories
RETIRING WITH LISA DE LEON
The Chrysalis Clothing Co

Updates and New Additions

Before listing all the new additions that were added to the site this evening, I wanted to remind any readers that the 2012 NL Blogger's Choice Awards will be coming soon. Having said that, it is likely that things will be postponed slightly, mostly due to the lack of nominations that have come in thus far. No, I'm not going to blame it on totally on the community, as the lack of available time to promote the nomination phase hasn't been good for getting things rolling. The past month has flown by for me and I don't really see things slowing down in the coming days or weeks. With that said though, Nominations will remain open for as long as needed. Please head on over to the Blogger's Choice Awards Section for more information and to nominate your favourite NL Blogs today.

December Newbies

Before you head out (or just after your done nominating), be sure to check out the newest additions to the blogroll as well, which are listed below and added to all the applicable sidebar rolls found throughout the site. Enjoy!

Trekkin' and Such
http://newfoundlandehboy.blogspot.ca/

The Ice Flow
http://sjicecaps.com/

A Blade of Grass
http://waxinggrasshopper.blogspot.ca/

Anarchy Newfoundland
http://anarchynfld.blogspot.ca/

Younger Grit
http://youngergrit.wordpress.com/

Liberty Manifesto NL
http://libertymanifestonl.blogspot.ca/

Paul Kinsman
http://williampaulkinsman.wordpress.com/

Zach Wheeler Blog
http://www.zachwheeler.ca/

Holly Momma
http://hollymomma9.blogspot.ca/

Caroline Clarke Blog
http://carolineclarke.ca/blog/

Labrador Spirit
http://labradorspirit.wordpress.com/

NL Insider
http://nlinsider.com/blog/

Newfound Marketing – Newfoundland Marketing Company
http://www.newfoundmarketing.com/our-blog/

Mud Songs
http://mudsongs.org/

Food Alergies Etcetera
http://foodallergiesetc.wordpress.com/

Richler Recipes
http://richlerrecipes.blogspot.ca/

The 2012 Awards Session

The 2012 NL Blogger's Choice Awards are rapidly approaching, and this year's awards session will start a little differently than last. This year we're going to begin with a nomination period whereby people who visit the BlogRoll (be they friends, family or strangers) get to choose who will be put up for vote. The final choices for each category will then be carefully selected based on many elements; design, content, frequency of posting, etc. That part is much like last year.

Nominating a blog is pretty simple stuff. All anyone has to do is GO TO THIS PAGE HERE and post a reply with the URL you wish to nominate (or feel free to send a email to nlblogroll @ gmail.com). It's as easy as that.

As posted on that link, there are three rules for submissions:

1) The nomination must be a current member of the NL BlogRoll, in either of the categories.

2) We are asking that you do NOT nominate your own blog, as that sort of defeats the purpose of nominations. We strongly encourage you to convince someone else to nominate you, but just not doing so yourselves.

3) No Anonymous Nominations will be accepted, but if you'd rather not log in to submit your choice, then please email us at nlblogroll @ gmail.com.

We'll be running this nomination period for approximately one month, bringing us to mid December with the actual awards session coming in January 2013.

Now, head on over to the hub page for the NL Blogger's Choice Awards and get nominating!

Reviving Blogger's Choice Winners

It's been several months since the winners from the 2011 Blogger's Choice awards were announced and considering the year is almost over, I figured it was a good time to remind everyone who those winners were. In the coming weeks we'll be discussing and initiating this years awards, but I wanted to send out this little reminder of the current winners before we get intto that. Go on now, have a gawk!

Art / Craft / Food WINNER: Norton's Cove Studio This blog is a behind the scenes look at the art of printmaking from Janet Davis and friends.

Educational / Books WINNER: Compulsive Overreader From Trudy Morgan-Cole who loves to read and equally loves to discuss it on this blog.

Entertainment / Media WINNER: GregPike.ca Greg posts things on his blog that his friends (and everyone likely) will enjoy.

Mixed Bag WINNER: Oh Me Nerves A blog of ridiculous rants on just about anything from Steve Melee.

Personal / Journal WINNER: Travelling Infinity This a wonderful personal site from Mandy Poole out of Stephenville Crossing

Photography WINNER: Donna Ramsay A lovely photo blog out of St. John's by Donna Ramsay (obviously).

Political / Commentary WINNER: The Rural Lens An informative blog dedicated to keeping Rural NL in focus.

Science / Technology WINNER: Elfshot Sticks & Stones An incredible archeological site from archaeologist and flintknapper Tim Rast.

Sport / Recreation WINNER: NL Running A very informative Running and multisport blog for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Travel / Business WINNER: Gas and Oil All about gas an oil issues as they pertain to this province, ran by George Murphy.

New Political / Commentary Winner

After spending a good portion of my afternoon yesterday finally getting the category pages redesigned and promoting each of the winners in the 2011 Blogger's Choice awards, I came to realize that the blog for the crowned champion of the Political / Commentary section was no longer loading. After contacting the owner, I was told that due to her now being employed by Liberal Party of Newfoundland Labrador, that she was ordered ('as standard practice': read more here on Geoff Meeker's blog) to delete her blog entirely. I'm honestly shocked over this and deeply saddened. Not only did we lose a dedicated blogger from our wonderful community here, but all her thoughts and words were also willingly completely purged from the internet. Why would anyone agree to do that? Furthermore, what exactly did the Liberal Party not want anyone to read now that she is employed with them? Morso, why in the heck would it be 'standard practice' for any open honest political party to do this? It looks incredibly terrible in my opinion, not only for the person who agreed to delete her personal thoughts, but mostly to the party who demanded it happen.

Regardless, I'm trying not to speak too politically within this space as I am more saddened about losing this voice from our community over the disturbing politics involved. What I'm mainly here to do today is to announce a new winner in the Politics / Commentary category for the 2011 Blogger's choice Awards. There is no point in promoting a deleted blog after all. What's sad is that I'm not sure how special the runner up is going to feel, now that they are being rewarded due to these circumstances. As much as I can assure the new winner (and any visitor reading this) that the battle in this category was a very close one, there's something a little defeating I would assume about being awarded under this situation. None the less, it is something I feel that should be done, and I hope the new winner feels as special as they should feel in the meantime.

So without further ado, please take the time to visit and congratulate the new winner in the Political / Commentary section... The Rural Lens. All related sections around the site have been updated accordingly. Congrats to the winner! Now get visiting...

And The Winners Are!

Waiting is finally over as the winners of the 2011 Newfoundland and Labrador Blogger's Choice Awards have officially now been announced! To view the winners in each of the 10 categories, head on over to to the Awards Section now!

I'll be posting more about each winner on each of the separate category pages throughout the day and will be announcing winners on Twitter and the Facebook Fan Page as well. Stay tuned!

Before heading out and taking care of all that however, I want to thank everyone for their patience over the past few months. I know it must have been tough waiting and not knowing what was up, but the NL BlogRoll is back on track again now. Much more to come in the coming days and weeks, but right now let's focus on these awesome winners who we all should be visiting and congratulating. Well done everyone. Congratulations!

Now, go check them out: CLICK HERE to visit the awards page or use the menu above.

Winners to be Announced TOMORROW!

The extremely long wait is nearly over my friends. The 10 winners of the 2011 NL Blogger's Choice Awards will be announced tomorrow and we'll be starting the day out in fine fashion. Not only will I be posting all about it here on this site (and all around the social media network this site exists within) but, I've also been invited on CBC Radio as well! That's right folks, tomorrow morning I'll be LIVE on the air for the St. John's Morning Show at around 8:20am where I'll be discussing the site and the winners prior to posting all about it online.

Be sure to tune to CBC radio in the morning to listen to the interview and then check here later in the day for a full announcement on the winners. Just a few short hours to go!

Vote Closed - What's Next

The end of September has come and with it the end to voting in the 2011 Blogger's Choice Awards. Here comes the fun (and/or scary) part; counting the votes. With upwards of a 1000 votes cast in the past couple weeks, spread over the 10 categories, I have a bit of work on my hands. If only I made it simple and excluded the points system this would be no sweat but, with the 3 tiered system in place, the nominees are going to have to hang tight while I get this done. What's a voting session without some tension as we wait right? :) Hang in there folks, the winners will be unveiled next week!

In other news, the Blog of the Week initiative will launch again later this month after a several month hiatus. Be sure to stay tuned every Sunday when we do launch, as a new blog each week (of the over 300 listed) will be featured.

Also, to those who have requested to be added to the BlogRoll in the past few weeks, thanks for being patient. You'll all be added not long after the winners of these awards are counted and unveiled. Hang tight!

24 Hours To Go

It's tough to believe that it's almost been two weeks since voting began in the Blogger's Choice Awards, but that is the reality; We're now down to just 24 hours left to vote! The voting threads will be closed end of day tomorrow, so time is short to get those final votes in.

Head over to the voting page while you still can!

Counting The Vote

With now less than a week left to vote in the Awards (again, go vote here) it's quickly dawning on me that I have to count all these things. Perhaps I should be encouraging less votes at this point...

Nah, I only kid of course. Go on and vote. There's only 6 days left to do so! No need to worry about the necessity of the count. I have a plan of attack in place and have enlisted in some help from a good friend and fellow blogger, so I'll be fine.

As a reminder however, there is a three tier voting system wherby anonymous votes are worth one point, logged in voters are worth five points and votes from fellow BlogRoll members being worth ten points. This adds to the complexity of the count, but I'm so up for the challenge. It'll be fun! I like numbers, so lets get the totals up. Get out there and vote!

On Winning the Awards

We're now nearly a week into the two week awards session, and as the votes keep streaming in (if you haven't voted yet, go to the Blogger's Choice Awards page and do so) I figured it was time to discuss again what exactly the winners of these awards actually get (besides bragging rights that is).

While I can't promise grand gifts of any physical kind, what I can do is provide the 10 winners of these awards with as much promotion as I can within this network. The bigger bonus is that the promotion will last for a full year until the next awards session launch in 2012.

What will these promotions entail?

• Individual posts spotlighting each winner will be made a few days after the awards close and the votes are counted.
• Mini clickable images will be placed in this sidebar on this main blog and in the Blogger's Choice Awards section.
• Each winner will be publicized in the applicable category page with a larger clickable image plus RSS feeds for the blog.
• Everyone will also have the option to partake in 'Guest Blogging' features throughout the next year, meaning unique posts made here with links and promos to their blog found within. More on this later!

And this is only the promos within the blog network. All this will feed through Twitter and Empire Avenue and any other social networks I play with.

What I'm trying to say I guess is, all I can give is promotion to blogs, and whatever ways I could come up with to do that will be done! 

One week to go...

Troubles Voting?

It's been reported in a couple of places as of late that some are having issues voting in some of the threads, some of the time. One such heads up came from fellow BlogRoll member Viewpoint who not only posted a comment (in this thread) about the issue, but also conducted some research into it as well. From what has been learned, not much can be done if it is happening to you, so it seems. I am looking into options or tips in the meantime...

I am curious to know how widespread the issue is though. Have many experienced any troubles attempting to post a vote on the voting  page? Please let me know if so!

Getting out the Vote

With candidates hitting the campaign trail in Newfoundland and Labrador, one may think this post would be referring to the upcoming election. Well, it's not. Nope, this post is in reference to the ongoing 2011 NL Blogger's Choice Awards of course. :)

As day 5 fades into the night we currently have nearly 500 votes cast, spread throughout all the categories. The sports and recreation thread is on fire at the moment with over 100 votes to itself. That could be a dog fight to the very end it seems. It will be interesting to see how all the categories turn out in fact, as the days move along here. Remember nominees, shameless self promotion is accepted encouraged.

In getting out the vote I've been reaching out to the usual social media networks. The Facebook page has been notified, the Twitterverse informed and ever the traders within Empire Avenue know about this thing. With the number of votes already cast, it appears to be working and hopefully this number will continue to rise as the week progresses. Stay tuned!

Psst - I encourage you to vote in the actual election too. :)

After Two Days of Voting

We are now on Day 3 of the 2011 NL Blogger's Choice Awards! So far nearly 300 votes have been cast spread over the 10 voting threads, which to me is impressive. The hot categories at the moment are the Entertainment / Media and Science / Technology ones, both of which have nearly 50 votes. The other threads aren't far behind and I'm sure as the days go by, things will pick up even more.

As a friendly reminder, you can vote once per day, per category. If you're a fellow NL BlogRol member, your vote counts a heck of a lot with the 10 points it's granted. Head on over the Voting Page now and have your say!

2011 Choice Awards Launched!

Voting for the 2011 NL Bloggers Choice Awards has been launched! 10 threads have been posted in the Blogger's Choice Awards section, each listing 3 nominees to vote on. To cast your vote, simple reply to the thread with you choice and that's it. Note that you can do so in all the categories and please remember, only one vote per day per category. Voting closes at the end of September.

To those who have been nominated, feel free to shamelessly promote your nomination. :)

Have fun!

Regarding the Nominees

Just in case frequent visitors missed this post from a while back (or new visitors are jumping in for the first time), I wanted to remind everyone of some of the criteria I used in selecting nominees for this years awards session. They are listed below in no particular order:

• Longevity - As this is the first year for these style awards, long standing members have been given a certain amount more consideration. There will be a much larger pool for selection next year.
• Frequency of posting - Those who post more were considered more. Makes sense to me anyway. :)
• Design - This was totally based on my opinion and believe me when I say that all were awesome, so this was moot really.

Having said that, I mainly just wanted to reiterate how difficult it was to select the final 30 to be put up for vote. You have no idea, trust me. The content of this collection (as I'm sure any browser already knows) is vastly diverse and all enveloped in awesomeness, so choosing only 30 out of over 300 was tough... and next year will only be more difficult. I think I'll have to put a nomination period in place or something... hmmm...

Anyway, let's stick to this year. 3 days!

Blogger's Choice Awards Set to Launch Sept 15th

We're finally ready to launch the 2011 NL Blogger's Choice awards! As noted on this recent post in the Awards section, things will kick off very soon; this coming Thursday, September 15th!

Here's a run down of how things will work:

• NOMINEES: Each category listed to the right has 3 blogs carefully selected based on many elements; design, content, frequency of posting and longevity on the list to name a few. The decision was solely at the discretion of the organizer of this list (for this first year anyway).
• Early that day 10 posts will be made in the Blogger's Choice section, each listing the 3 nominees per category and will remain active for 2 weeks (well, 15 days) until the end of September. All one will have to do to vote is reply to the thread with their choice and that's it. 

• TO VOTE: All one must do is reply to the voting thread listing their choice(s). It'll be as simple as that. There is one slight addition however; certain value is applied to the type of blogger who replies:
• NOTE: We are limiting the amount anyone can vote for any blog to be daily.
• Anonymous voters will be worth 1 point. They can't be ignored, but shouldn't be overvalued (and flood control will be applied just for good measure).
• Logged / linked in voters will be worth 5 points, as to me the non-anonymity of these votes are worth more.
• Votes from fellow NL Blogger's currently listed on the roll will be worth 10 grand points. These are our true peers after all and adding this interactivity will only be a bonus in the end.
• WINNER: The winner of each category will gain a tonne of free promotion, for a full year, within this site and the network it extends into. From promotional posts and badges on each category page, I have plenty of ideas up my sleeve for over the next year. I wish I could announce grand prizes of extreme extravagance, but these gifts of free promotion should not be undervalued I suppose. That's what any blogger wants right; traffic?  

And with that, all that remains to do now is wait. Just a short wait however; 5 days. Just 5 days...

Choice Awards Prep

In preparation for the 2011 Newfoundland Labrador Blogger's Choice Awards, I am attempting to achieve many things, and with time winding down before my intended (unannounced) start date for the awards quickly approaching, the pressure to keep working is intensifying. Of course, it's more excitement than stress I should point out. I'm just ecstatic to get this thing on the go! In the meantime, I should cool my jets for a moment and take a break from the tinkering to fill you in on what I've been working on.

Shortlisted

As posted in the Bloggers Choice Awards section, 50 blogs  have now been shortlisted. I will be finalizing the list of 30 (3 per category) as soon as possible. There are still some promotional and information items I'll have to take care of when the finalists are selected and time is running out. The thing is, it's rather difficult finalizing the list with so many awesome blogs to choose from.

Categorical Update

The most work I have to take care of before the dust settles within the awards, is finishing off the category pages that I've been working on. For those who don't know, I've been developing stand alone pages for the 10 categories we have within the BlogRoll here, each with a dedicated list of all the blogs found in that category. The intention is for a better browsing experience.

And just because I'm excited; if you'd like a sneak peak of what these pages are going to look like, check out a rough version of the Politics / Commentary one I've started. Keep in mind that this is not anywhere final, but it will give you an idea of where I'm going.

What's best about these stand alone pages is that it provides an opportunity to further promote the choice bloggers this year and beyond. Each category's page will have promotional items (badges, rss feeds, etc) for winner's blog for the entire year... and who knows where each page will go from there. With each category essentially now having it's own 'blog', the possibilities are endless really... 

I should perhaps remain focused on the awards though. I have to remember that time is short and I am easily distracted... and with that, back at it!

Newfoundland, Labrador, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, BlogRoll

Just a teaser...

In just a few short weeks, 30 carefully selected blogs from our beloved Newfoundland Labrador BlogRoll (of nearly 300 blogs) will be unveiled and for two weeks following, the people (visitors to this site) will vote on their favorites.

Voting will be simple. Each of the 10 categories will have a post with it's 3 selections displayed. All one will have to do is post a reply to that thread with their choice. It's as simple as that AND I am allowing one vote PER DAY. The way I see it, if someone is dedicated enough to vote more than once, I have to give kudos for that.

You may be wondering what is to gain from all this (besides you know, the fun of it all). Well, the winner of each category will gain a tonne of free promotion, for a full year, within this site and the network it extends into. I wish I could announce grand prizes of extreme extravagance, but these gifts of free promotion should not be undervalued I suppose. That's what any blogger wants right; traffic?

Well, hopefully the winners will enjoy what I have in store for them... but yeah, you'll have to wait on that. :)

Newfoundland, Labrador, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, BlogRoll

Blogger's Choice Awards Update

As the summer rapidly approaches, I'm becoming increasingly more aware of the fact that my intended launch date for the 2011 NL Bloggers Choice Awards is coming soon. To stop teasing with the start date, I can let you know that early June is what I've been targeting, but that's all I'll elaborate on for now. I will say that this now gives me roughly one month to get everything in order... which is good because, as I become more aware of the date, I realize how much work I have to do.

Having said that, I can report that I have accomplished a lot over the past few weeks as well. One of the main tasks checked of the list being the launch of a stand alone blog to handle the awards section of our community here (which can be found using the main menu above). This is where the voting and everything else related to the awards will be taking place when we fully launch and for now, there is some great information about last years fun times found within.

Beyond that, I'm trying to find the time to finalize all the single category pages which I've been creating. It was my intention to launch each one as I announce the winners of this years awards, so I have to focus on getting that done in the next few weeks. More importantly, I also have to make final decisions on the three choices per category that will be going up for vote. This has actually turned out to be the most difficult task of all. There are just too darn many great blogs here, and picking only three in each category is really tough... really,  really tough. I'll have to set a deadline for myself, or perhaps recruit and outsider to decide for me. That may work...

While I decide, I'll leave you with that as another update from the land of the NL Bloggers Choice Awards. I do realize that I've been teasing you with it for months but... who doesn't like a good tease, right?  :)

Newfoundland, Labrador, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, BlogRoll