The 2004 IndiBloggies are here and as I announced previously, someone nominated me to be a jury member. In this year’s edition, the jury members will make nominations for various categories and then on a final date, the race will be opened to the public for a very non-scientific form of voting. In any case, I have received a few nomination requests and have pretty much made up my mind with respect to some of the categories.
- IndiBlog of the year
- Best technology IndiBlog
- Movalog and Wordlog: I have no problems in nominating these two fine weblogs focused on the two dominant blogging softwares, Movable Type and WordPress. Movalog.com and Wordlog.com are maintained by Arvind Satyanarayan and Carthik respectively and are fine repositories for the latest information on weblogging software. This being the year of the blog, the nominations for this category had to go to blogs from India that help in building on the cutting edge of this new technology.
- Blogstreet India: This year also saw the launch of the most ambitious project in the history of Indian blogging. Blogstreet India came into being on October 2, 2004 when Rajesh Jain announced the soft launch. Since then, they have not looked back. As of today, they have 1291 blogs in their directory that are directly related to India. They organize the blogs based on geographical location and also rank them based on inter-linking amongst the blogs that are in the directory. The coolest feature on their site is the book, music and dvd recommendations. They scan the user blogs and dig out the names of books and media that the bloggers have made recommendations for. How cool is that! There isn’t really a matching competitor for this category that compares in features and my sole nomination for this category without hesitation goes to Blogstreet India.
- Raj’s Photoblog: The first of my two nominations for this category was my choice before I even recieved any nominations for it. Rajesh Krishnamurthy has a breath-taking photoblog on his site. His art has a distinct uniqueness that takes you into each picture as if you were there in person. The diversity of his subjects and his skill at framing each photograph just right gives all the other photo-enthusiasts a lot to learn from. Raj’s Photoblog is the first of my two nominations in this category.
The rest of my nominations will come next weekend and I am still accepting nominations for the above categories in the mean while. The one thing I don’t understand is why there is no category for the Best Science IndiBlog?