Another Wine Blog: The Grapes of Rant: Wine Blogger Awards are Corked
k2whino
· 9 months ago
I hear ya man, and I totally agree. A couple of serious curveballs. Loads of good blogs that were seemingly overlooked. Not sure who judged this thing, but they obviously like to ogle naked girls.
Maybe next year they'll get it right, right?
Houstonwino
· 9 months ago
Hope the naked girls are hotter next year. Oops, I mean I hope that they have better categories and stuff.
WineWonkette
· 9 months ago
Or there could be a category for best use of gratuitous sex and curse words tangentially related to wine.
1WineDude
· 9 months ago
I hope you're right - then I might win! :-)
WineDiverGirl
· 9 months ago
Thanks, Man! I laughed out loud appreciating the perspective. Agreed that SOOO many were left off nominations and categories: may I add 1WineDude, WannaBeWino, Luscious Lushes's, BrixChicks, The Able Grape, Anything But Wine...Humanitas Drink Charitably Blog, My Daily Wine, DirtySouthWine, Goosecross, oh SOOOO many I can't get them all in...and I will curse myself for the ones I forgot here...oh! OF COURSE...Another Wine Blog...f*ck!
I did ask about "Best New Wine Blog" on twitter: Mr. Wark had the decency to answer both on twitter AND on WineBizRadio (ALSO should have been nominated!)...something about too much work, logistics of sorting through qualified blogs, judges time, blah, blah, blah.
Ok, so what did we decide? More categories, better criteria, more finalists, more nudity and ...more wine. Did that cover it? Are you listening OWC? Good grief, give credit where credit is due...yes, I'll step up if you need help!
Too many darn wine blogs going without recognition!
Cheers.
Houstonwino
· 9 months ago
Great list of blogs and suggestions there! It is great that Tom answered your questions, but he shouldn't be giving out awards if he doesn't have the time to do it right. That kind of reflects badly on us all, imo.
WineWonkette
· 9 months ago
To me, if you want to have a "Best Newspaper Column in Blog format that has a paid writer, advertising, access to paid photographers and worldwide credibility" well that should be in a category with other similarly situated on-line columns.
Or heck, just have an honorary category for all those.
But having honest-to-goodness blogs go up against them? Maketh not one lick 'o sense.
Michelle
· 9 months ago
This is a great discussion. When I originally looked at the categories, my thought was "I don't really fit into any of those." I would love if they had a best regional blog (although Lenn would always win, at least I'd feel I had a category), best new wine blog to encourage those who are shouting into the void for a while, and best newspaper or publisher blog. That would make me feel a little better about having talents like Asimov in there who actually get paid to do this sort of thing.
I also think that if you win the category so many years in a row, which is going to happen I suspect, you should take yourself out of the running or be removed from the running automatically. This gels with what you are saying - some of these awards should help promote the hidden gems, not call more attention to our shining stars.
As I mentioned to Kevin, it's a good thing I don't judge myself on awards. They're nice, but if I let myself get upset (as some folks seem to) about the AWBA, I'd be in trouble. I learned this lesson in high school when I was always "almost" prom queen. As it is, while they are semi-large in the wine blogging community (at least to some), I find it quite easy to completely ignore the presence of the AWBA as well.
Fantastic post, by the way! Cheers!
WineWonkette
· 9 months ago
You know what might be a good idea, is if you win three times, you then move to the Judges panel, and write a blog post on what makes a winning wine blog.
I think we should all be helping each other to promote wine education and enjoyment. And there's nothing better than providing tips to newcomers to help them to do so as well.
Ron Washam
· 9 months ago
I absolutely agree that I should not be nominated for an American Wine Blog Award. And I really don't care whether I win or not. I blog for my own entertainment, as a creative outlet for my former comedy writing urges, and to spoof on wine blogs in general.
My blog was created graphically in way less than an hour and I make no claims for any graphic sense or originality. The jokes are mine, unlike most of the opinions out there in the blogosphere. The nudies just started appearing one day from somewhere in my comedy subconscious and the whole deal just sort of worked for me. I get a lot of public reaction condemning it, and four times that reaction privately telling me that they love the whole thing. The juxtaposition of naked women with a blog about wine (ostensibly) merely heightens the absurdity.
I hope that no one votes for me, or for anyone else. Come on, you can't complain about it being the usual suspects and then praise Vinography and Lenndevours and all the other old wine blog cronies. If you need a new category to win doesn't that just further dilute the awards, make them even more meaningless? Would an award make you feel better about yourself? Gosh, I hope not.
It's just a little award made up by a very nice, ambitious, marketing guy that does more for his blog than for anyone else's. It ain't the Nobel Prize. It's not even a People's Choice. Relax, keep blogging, if you just do what you like your audience will find you--you don't need to go looking for them.
Ron
1WineDude
· 9 months ago
Ron - *fantastic* response!
Cellulite
· 8 months ago
Hey agree here! Totally. Thanks for the post, keep coming with posts like this one!
Jessica
Houstonwino
· 9 months ago
Good points for the most part, Ron. Things I take exception with, however minor, are as follows. In your comments you state that you don't deserve an award. You very well might, but I just find the category that you are nominated in to be an odd fit. Also, adding categories would be to recognize folks who don't write wine reviews or work for the industry. There are some very cool blogs out there that do not fit any of Wark's categories.
My biggest disagreement with your comment is that you seem to think these things don't matter. They do, and they are a highly visible representation of wine blogs. I'm not losing any sleep over them, but that doesn't mean that I have to like the fact that the nice, ambitious marketing guy's promotion of his own site promotes the NYT's instead of real bloggers.
All in all, however, I think you are dead on. Oh, and too late on hoping that no one votes for you. I already did. :P~
1WineDude
· 9 months ago
Sorry to spam comments on this post, but it's the best summary of challenges facing the AWBA that I've ever read - great, great work.
Whether or not the AWBA are "serious" awards (or not) is (IMO) less important than the potential impact that the finalist lists can have on the blogging world.
I will offer by way of example something from my own blog. The collective blog-o-world can feel free to flame me here for doing that if I deserve it - but honestly this is not about generating a link / traffic to my post, it's just that I don't have another example so I am going with what I know:
I make very little from advertising. I make very little from affiliate programs. I receive plenty of wine samples but I don't sell them so I don't make any money from those, either.
This means that my budget for the wine blog is effectively ZERO.
Anything I do to bring better and better content to my readers has to be a labor of love, because it's done entirely at my own expense.
I'm not bragging (I didn't say if they were *good* articles or not! :-), I'm just saying that I tried, at my own expense, to offer my readers something hopefully as good as they could get at an established wine magazine, but for free. Whether I succeeded or not is less important than the fact that I did it at my own expense.
Now, I'm not going to hang up my blogging boots, but I would be lying if I didn't say that I haven't considered doing just that several times. Even though I love it, it's not making me much cash and it takes a LOT of time and effort to offer this kind of writing for nothing.
What's my point?
What if another writer, way better than I am, was going to offer the same but decided against it because blog articles like that get no recognition?
No James Beard award, no links from the likes of the NYT, no AWBA. People getting that kind of attention already have the backing of expense accounts from their association to traditional media.
Good writers might decide not to blog because a) they won't make $$ and b) won't get recognition.
They will migrate to traditional media, where they might get both.
I fear that we are killing our own, sort of.
WineWonkette
· 9 months ago
Feel free to spam ;) I'll spam answer you. Very good points!
Taster B
· 9 months ago
Regarding the format, I know that it is a super terrific way to drive tons of traffic to Fermentation but, I would REALLY like to see it go to an anonymous surveymonkey format. I basically boycotted (ok, I nominated for one category and voted in the finals) because I think in such a tight-knit community it can become too much like a high school popularity contest. Well...it is a popularity contest I guess--that's the point. But, I mean there are possibly friendships at stake and so on...
Houstonwino
· 9 months ago
That is a big part of the problem, these awards are presented as representing this tight-knit community, but the inclusion of ringers just shows that the main purpose is to drive traffic to a single site.
Hopefully the move to the OWC will solve a lot of these issues.
Enobytes
· 9 months ago
Great post and comments!
Last year, we kicked around a lot of great ideas on how to modify and/or improve upon the wine blogger awards over at OWC, but I’m afraid not much activity happened after the lengthy discussion:
What about this – what if we have a Wine Blogger Award session at the 2009 Wine Bloggers Conference? We could get everyone in the same room to discuss improvements (e.g. adding categories), policies (e.g. 3 wins and you’re out), etc. etc. Everyone could come with their ideas, and we could have a moderator/facilitator to oversee the meeting and capture all the great ideas and then figure out next steps for implementing changes.
I know that Joel is usually open to suggesting session topics at this event, so I propose we ask Joel to support a session topic for said agenda. Heck, it might have to be a ½ day workshop! :)
Houstonwino
· 9 months ago
Excellent suggestions!
Enobytes
· 9 months ago
Oh heck, the above link isn't working. Let's try it again...
couldn't agree with you more, enobytes. i think the wine blogger's conference is a great place to sort this out and given how passionate this community is, should also be fun and productive.
WineWonkette
· 9 months ago
That sounds like a great idea! It would make even more sense, to me, that the finalists were announced prior to the start of the 2010 conference, and that the winners be announced AT the 2010 Wine Blogger Conference.
Houstonwino
· 9 months ago
That is another good idea. We might even be able to find a bottle or two to toast the winners there.
Tish
· 9 months ago
Lots of intelligent comments here, with suprisingly little rancor or ego. There may never be a solution that satisfies everyone, but the wine blogosphere has clearly busted wide open. Reading lots of blogs (but NOT ENOUGH - as I now see I need to follow yours) has convinced me that the future of wine writing is definitely on the Web. Keep up the good collective work and the attention will come....
WineWonkette
· 9 months ago
Thanks for stopping by Tish, feel free to come back often!
Ron McFarland
· 9 months ago
The great discoveries in wine are usually from off the beaten path, the back roads or down the drive with only a number on the post. So it will be with blogs and other wine content on the web.
It is only natural that in a short space of time "awards" or ratings are now part of the picture.
Tom Wark
· 9 months ago
As far as rants go, this is a pretty damned good one and as cogent as it gets.
The most interesting nugget is the idea that:
"a blogger is the do-it-yourself type. Someone who has something that they want to say, has no real outlet to do so, and then reacts by creating that outlet themselves. A blogger starts out by shouting into the void, knowing that no one is listening, but hoping that if they shout long enough, and well enough, people will slowly begin to pay attention. It isn’t about adding a Web site to the list of places that you are published."
I don't disagree, but I think also that the nature of the blog and blogging is also wrapped around the technology that spawned it and spawned the possibility that anyone, include those who have seen their words distributed on dead trees, can do it themselves and even compete for eyeballs.
Take Steve Heimoff for example. Long time editor for Wine Enthusiast and before that the Wine Spectator. As Mainstream as it gets. Steve all of a sudden has a blog where HE is the editor, HE posts what he wants. HE says what he wants. HE controls the flow. The fact that he has contacts, perspective, experience and built in credibility doesn't necessarily mean he's going to produce a great alternative to mainstream wine publications that he is indeed a part of .
But he has. Steve, like it or not, is your blogging competition and deserves to be considered in any process that recognizes good blogging.
Your point about the up and comers is a good one, however.
So here's my suggestion. Contact Joel Vincent right now. Ask him to be part of the team that evaluates and re-creates the Wine Blog Awards. Get involved in the process so that when the next awards roll around, they will be better and better-able to recognize the "do it yourself types."
Great post!!
Houstonwino
· 9 months ago
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and post. You are a gracious person and a true gentlemen for doing so in the manner that you have. However, I disagree about Heimoff. Until he stops treating other bloggers disdainfully and starts to reply to comments more regularly, he is just another print guy who decided he needed an online presence. There is much more to being a blogger, imo, than just being online. The fact that you decided to come here to post illustrates that point.
Good point about contacting Joel, I believe that my wife already has. If not she will be soon.
Tom Wark
· 9 months ago
JP,
Really? There's more to being a blogger than setting up an online presence at which you post regularly, with the latest posts on top? This begs the question: what are the minimum criteria for being a "Blogger"?
And, as it turns out, In a post from yesterday in which steve got 26 comments (so far), he posts 8 responses.
I'd also not that how one treats other bloggers, has never been a criteria for being a blogger yourself. It might not make you a nice blogger, or a cooperative blogger, but I think one's disposition really has nothing to do with whether or not you are blogging.
The beauty of the blogging format is that it allows experienced people like Steve to set up shop without an editor, where he can rant, report or rave on at will and with no holds barred.
Seems to me that's what he has done. He just happens to come to this publishing format with far more experience, writing talents and reporting background than most other bloggers.
I can't compete with Steve's use of the English language, with his reporting skills or with his contacts. But I cant rant and rave and opinionate right there with him. In fact, I'll put my ranting up alongside Steve's any day.
Still, we are both bloggers.
Cheers, Tom....
Houstonwino
· 9 months ago
Good for Heimoff if he has started replying to comments in a timely manner. Maybe he took the advice he was given last time he decided to tell bloggers how they should comport themselves. As I told him then, he may become a blogger yet.
And no, just putting up an online column in addition to your print activities does not make you a blogger. Blogging, done well, is a conversation. That is why so many celebrity blogs are a joke. They post, their fans comment, no connection is made. Traditional media folks tend to follow the same model. Heimoff WAS guilty of that at one time. He was setting himself up as both a blogger, and yet somehow above the fray all while being condescending to some very good bloggers. Bloggers don't necessarily have to be nice to each other, but straddling the divide between new media and old while delivering lectures from on high to those that you seek to join doesn't quite get you admitted to the club.
I have not read him since that dust-up, despite him being an excellent writer. I probably should start doing so again, especially given what you've said here. Not because of his writing and knowledge, those are a given, but because it sounds like he might be getting the hang of this whole blogging racket.
To put this all in a nutshell, CNN is online. It has writers. It allows comments. But it ain't a blog in my book, not even on the pages where it pretends to be one.
All Comments
Maybe next year they'll get it right, right?
I did ask about "Best New Wine Blog" on twitter: Mr. Wark had the decency to answer both on twitter AND on WineBizRadio (ALSO should have been nominated!)...something about too much work, logistics of sorting through qualified blogs, judges time, blah, blah, blah.
Ok, so what did we decide? More categories, better criteria, more finalists, more nudity and ...more wine. Did that cover it? Are you listening OWC? Good grief, give credit where credit is due...yes, I'll step up if you need help!
Too many darn wine blogs going without recognition!
Cheers.
Or heck, just have an honorary category for all those.
But having honest-to-goodness blogs go up against them? Maketh not one lick 'o sense.
I also think that if you win the category so many years in a row, which is going to happen I suspect, you should take yourself out of the running or be removed from the running automatically. This gels with what you are saying - some of these awards should help promote the hidden gems, not call more attention to our shining stars.
As I mentioned to Kevin, it's a good thing I don't judge myself on awards. They're nice, but if I let myself get upset (as some folks seem to) about the AWBA, I'd be in trouble. I learned this lesson in high school when I was always "almost" prom queen. As it is, while they are semi-large in the wine blogging community (at least to some), I find it quite easy to completely ignore the presence of the AWBA as well.
Fantastic post, by the way! Cheers!
I think we should all be helping each other to promote wine education and enjoyment. And there's nothing better than providing tips to newcomers to help them to do so as well.
My blog was created graphically in way less than an hour and I make no claims for any graphic sense or originality. The jokes are mine, unlike most of the opinions out there in the blogosphere. The nudies just started appearing one day from somewhere in my comedy subconscious and the whole deal just sort of worked for me. I get a lot of public reaction condemning it, and four times that reaction privately telling me that they love the whole thing. The juxtaposition of naked women with a blog about wine (ostensibly) merely heightens the absurdity.
I hope that no one votes for me, or for anyone else. Come on, you can't complain about it being the usual suspects and then praise Vinography and Lenndevours and all the other old wine blog cronies. If you need a new category to win doesn't that just further dilute the awards, make them even more meaningless? Would an award make you feel better about yourself? Gosh, I hope not.
It's just a little award made up by a very nice, ambitious, marketing guy that does more for his blog than for anyone else's. It ain't the Nobel Prize. It's not even a People's Choice. Relax, keep blogging, if you just do what you like your audience will find you--you don't need to go looking for them.
Ron
Jessica
My biggest disagreement with your comment is that you seem to think these things don't matter. They do, and they are a highly visible representation of wine blogs. I'm not losing any sleep over them, but that doesn't mean that I have to like the fact that the nice, ambitious marketing guy's promotion of his own site promotes the NYT's instead of real bloggers.
All in all, however, I think you are dead on. Oh, and too late on hoping that no one votes for you. I already did. :P~
Whether or not the AWBA are "serious" awards (or not) is (IMO) less important than the potential impact that the finalist lists can have on the blogging world.
I will offer by way of example something from my own blog. The collective blog-o-world can feel free to flame me here for doing that if I deserve it - but honestly this is not about generating a link / traffic to my post, it's just that I don't have another example so I am going with what I know:
I make very little from advertising. I make very little from affiliate programs. I receive plenty of wine samples but I don't sell them so I don't make any money from those, either.
This means that my budget for the wine blog is effectively ZERO.
Anything I do to bring better and better content to my readers has to be a labor of love, because it's done entirely at my own expense.
Last year, I interviewed the founder of Ravenswood ( http://1winedude.com/index.php/2008/12/03/the-b...), went in-depth on how an up-start winery is trying to change the face of East Coast winemaking ( http://1winedude.com/index.php/2008/11/10/no-sh... ), and went as deep inside an established high-end winery icon (Opus One) as I've ever seen anyone in traditional wine media do ( http://1winedude.com/index.php/2008/11/05/a-sen... ).
I'm not bragging (I didn't say if they were *good* articles or not! :-), I'm just saying that I tried, at my own expense, to offer my readers something hopefully as good as they could get at an established wine magazine, but for free. Whether I succeeded or not is less important than the fact that I did it at my own expense.
Now, I'm not going to hang up my blogging boots, but I would be lying if I didn't say that I haven't considered doing just that several times. Even though I love it, it's not making me much cash and it takes a LOT of time and effort to offer this kind of writing for nothing.
What's my point?
What if another writer, way better than I am, was going to offer the same but decided against it because blog articles like that get no recognition?
No James Beard award, no links from the likes of the NYT, no AWBA. People getting that kind of attention already have the backing of expense accounts from their association to traditional media.
Good writers might decide not to blog because a) they won't make $$ and b) won't get recognition.
They will migrate to traditional media, where they might get both.
I fear that we are killing our own, sort of.
Hopefully the move to the OWC will solve a lot of these issues.
Last year, we kicked around a lot of great ideas on how to modify and/or improve upon the wine blogger awards over at OWC, but I’m afraid not much activity happened after the lengthy discussion:
http://www.openwineconsortium.org/group/wineblo...
What about this – what if we have a Wine Blogger Award session at the 2009 Wine Bloggers Conference? We could get everyone in the same room to discuss improvements (e.g. adding categories), policies (e.g. 3 wins and you’re out), etc. etc. Everyone could come with their ideas, and we could have a moderator/facilitator to oversee the meeting and capture all the great ideas and then figure out next steps for implementing changes.
I know that Joel is usually open to suggesting session topics at this event, so I propose we ask Joel to support a session topic for said agenda. Heck, it might have to be a ½ day workshop! :)
http://www.openwineconsortium.org/group/owcawar...
It is only natural that in a short space of time "awards" or ratings are now part of the picture.
The most interesting nugget is the idea that:
"a blogger is the do-it-yourself type. Someone who has something that they want to say, has no real outlet to do so, and then reacts by creating that outlet themselves. A blogger starts out by shouting into the void, knowing that no one is listening, but hoping that if they shout long enough, and well enough, people will slowly begin to pay attention. It isn’t about adding a Web site to the list of places that you are published."
I don't disagree, but I think also that the nature of the blog and blogging is also wrapped around the technology that spawned it and spawned the possibility that anyone, include those who have seen their words distributed on dead trees, can do it themselves and even compete for eyeballs.
Take Steve Heimoff for example. Long time editor for Wine Enthusiast and before that the Wine Spectator. As Mainstream as it gets. Steve all of a sudden has a blog where HE is the editor, HE posts what he wants. HE says what he wants. HE controls the flow. The fact that he has contacts, perspective, experience and built in credibility doesn't necessarily mean he's going to produce a great alternative to mainstream wine publications that he is indeed a part of .
But he has. Steve, like it or not, is your blogging competition and deserves to be considered in any process that recognizes good blogging.
Your point about the up and comers is a good one, however.
So here's my suggestion. Contact Joel Vincent right now. Ask him to be part of the team that evaluates and re-creates the Wine Blog Awards. Get involved in the process so that when the next awards roll around, they will be better and better-able to recognize the "do it yourself types."
Great post!!
Good point about contacting Joel, I believe that my wife already has. If not she will be soon.
Really? There's more to being a blogger than setting up an online presence at which you post regularly, with the latest posts on top? This begs the question: what are the minimum criteria for being a "Blogger"?
And, as it turns out, In a post from yesterday in which steve got 26 comments (so far), he posts 8 responses.
I'd also not that how one treats other bloggers, has never been a criteria for being a blogger yourself. It might not make you a nice blogger, or a cooperative blogger, but I think one's disposition really has nothing to do with whether or not you are blogging.
The beauty of the blogging format is that it allows experienced people like Steve to set up shop without an editor, where he can rant, report or rave on at will and with no holds barred.
Seems to me that's what he has done. He just happens to come to this publishing format with far more experience, writing talents and reporting background than most other bloggers.
I can't compete with Steve's use of the English language, with his reporting skills or with his contacts. But I cant rant and rave and opinionate right there with him. In fact, I'll put my ranting up alongside Steve's any day.
Still, we are both bloggers.
Cheers,
Tom....
And no, just putting up an online column in addition to your print activities does not make you a blogger. Blogging, done well, is a conversation. That is why so many celebrity blogs are a joke. They post, their fans comment, no connection is made. Traditional media folks tend to follow the same model. Heimoff WAS guilty of that at one time. He was setting himself up as both a blogger, and yet somehow above the fray all while being condescending to some very good bloggers. Bloggers don't necessarily have to be nice to each other, but straddling the divide between new media and old while delivering lectures from on high to those that you seek to join doesn't quite get you admitted to the club.
I have not read him since that dust-up, despite him being an excellent writer. I probably should start doing so again, especially given what you've said here. Not because of his writing and knowledge, those are a given, but because it sounds like he might be getting the hang of this whole blogging racket.
To put this all in a nutshell, CNN is online. It has writers. It allows comments. But it ain't a blog in my book, not even on the pages where it pretends to be one.