Final Nominations in Avant Garde Bloggies Awards – 2009

About 300 Participants and 700 + nominations. Pruned down finally to 300+ in compliance with rules.

Note: 1. All series posts ( For example, Part 1, 2, 3 of a travel and story post) will be treated as one.

2. One person is eligible for nominations only in three categories. For those of you, who did not respond to emails from us, I have taken decision on my own.

3. Exception to Rule 2: It is only the people with several blogs have got 4 nominations. Avdi/Ava is an exception, she had 4 different niche blogs, hence, has got 5 nominations.

4. If you see an error in names of author or any duplication, let us know. Half of you didn’t let us know about the author of the posts, we have included what we could find from the blog.

5. All posts nominated in the categories of Best Consumer Rights Post and Best Music Review Post will directly go to polls (skipping the judgment step), since there are only 5/6 valid nominations in these categories.

6. Now this is over to judges listed here. They will take 15 days. After that there will be poll. It will take some time to decide, please bear with me with patience.

Next year, process needs to be automated, this is no longer one person job. Requires a team of dedicated people and processes. Would seek help from techies next year. Thanks! 🙂

Happy Makar Sankranti: Updates

It was still two hours to go when I started writing this post, so yes, I am in time to wish you a very happy Makar Sankranti.

Update 1:  Bad news: No results today as promised. Avant Garde has been delayed. And I regret it.

Last time Avant Garde Bloggies Awards was smooth and on time. There were just about 100+ nominations and no complicated rules like limitations we have this time. This time, number of nominations received have been was mammoth 400+ 700+, thanks to social networking. Current list of nominations that I have on dashboard runs about 190 pages of Word document!! However, sad part is many of them are not compliant with rules.

In addition, I have been too caught with my full-time job, which is at the moment a WORK HELL (in terms of work load). As a result, Avant Garde suffered. I take full responsibility for the lapse and apologize for that.

But in doing that, I do disservice to friends and volunteers like Anshul, Dhiren, Vimal, Smita, Vee, Jaslene and Gaurav Saha. Because without them, I would not even have come this close.

I aim to finish FINAL compilation of nominations by this weekend. After that:

Phase 2: Judges select 6 best post in each categories (we will need 15 days for that)

Phase 3:  Polling on 6 best posts chosen by the judges (we will have 7 days of polling).

So yes, Avant Garde is DELAYED by exactly a month.

Polling will happen on Avant Garde Bloggies Awards Blog, which is now public. You can also see the list of judges there.

Update 2: As for compliance with rules, we have written to most of you bloggers, who have more than the allowed number of nominations, during this time.  But so many of you have not responded. Some of those who have not responded yet are: Noyon, Dev, Noyon,  Pinasha, Blue Mist, Avada Kedavra, Suranga, Partha Pratim. Folks, if you answer by Saturady, All is well. But if not, I am regretful to inform that I will have to take off your nominations. 😦

For each of you who participated, thank you. 🙂 Especially those who nominated in compliance with rules the first time, a BIG thank you. You have no idea how much effort you have saved us. For next year, there has to be an automated system to compile and sort nominations.  But that will be later.

Update 3: And in other news (which my friend Gauri says is most overused cliche), I was interviewed at Blogadda. Life seems to have come to a full circle at least where interviews are concerned. Once I had started this initiative to interview bloggers at a team blog Being a Blogger (BaB), now I am myself the Interviewee.

You can read Part 1 of my interview here, which is more personal and about me and Part 2, which is more of my opinions on various issues. Let me know what you think about it. 🙂

Avant Garde Bloggies Awards 2009 – Addition of Categories

I have to start by thanking everyone for your support. We have received about 120+ nominations. Again, with public demand, here are two new categories:

Best 55 er Post: It is a post that tells a story in 55 words.

Best evocative post on parenting:  This category included all posts about your kids, parenting in general. It includes both mommy bloggers and daddy bloggers, if there are terms like that. 🙂

I would also like to point out that you can nominate all your science/nature posts under the Best Tech post category. Depending on the number of nomiantions we have in the Science category, we can start that next year. 🙂

Remember if a category doesn’t receive at least 6 nominations, it will be scrapped. There are very few nomiantions in these categories:

1. Best Consumer Rights post

2. Best Professional Blog

3. Best Tech Post

4. Best How-to Post (which surprisingly was a popular category last year)

5. Best Culinery Post: Surprisingly so far received only 6 nominations! How come! I thought we had lot of food  bloggers around. We then certainly have not been reaching out to all the right people.

Nominate more posts and save these categories from dungeons. 🙂

You can check the list of categories here. Please send in your nominations in the comments section of this Avant Garde kick-off post.

Note that if you can not see your comment after posting, please DO NOT WORRY. It has most probably gone into spam due to too many links.   I will retrieve it when I spend a moment on wordpress. For safety sake, just let me know in another comment that you nominated, I will approve your comment.

Lastly, please read the rules before nominating. As per now, you can nominate you posts in three categories, which excludes the blog award categories as listed in the list of categories. I publicly request all of you who have nominated themselves in all the categories, to consider and let us know,  in which three categories you would like to enter your blog posts.

P.S: Avant Garde Bloggies Awards Group on Facebook. has about 110 members, please join them for more updates that are not regularly posted here on the blog.

P.P.S:  Both the current header and Avant Garde Bloggies Awards badges have been designed by Chirag.

P.P.P.S: Please DO NOT write in your nominations in the comment section of this post. For nominations, write in the comments section of this Avant Garde kick-off post.

The Avant Garde Bloggies Awards 2009 – Kick Off

It’s that time of year again. On public demand, Avant Garde Bloggies Awards 2009 are here.

As you know from 2008, Avant Garde Bloggies awards aim to recognise the best posts from your blog. It is an award competition where your entries are voted and judged by fellow, expert bloggers. It is a competition to recognise your blog. And as always, its meant to be fun and healthy.

Avant Garde Bloggies Awards 2009?

Last year Avant Garde Bloggies Awards (2008) was very popular. It had a huge participation; so much that it had to be conducted with the help of a small, dedicated team (whom I can never stop thanking enough):  🙂  The Scrutinizing Committee, the Publicist, the Badge Designer, the Poll Manager and of course the Judges.

This is the list of award categories for which nominations were invited. Before taking the plunge into such a mammoth and busy affair, I would like to know your opinion:

Taking lessons from the last year event, there will be some necessary changes this year. For example, multiple nomination by same person in a category will not be allowed. Voting will be available for lesser duration. Award categories maybe overhauled. And more changes, if required.

Similarly, in case you want to suggest any changes in Avant Garde Bloggies Awards, if conducted this year, let us know in the comments section. Thank you!

P.S: Oh, and here is a promotion video from last year created by Nikhil.

Win Prizes at The MovieManiax Awards

Yes, now YOU can win prizes at The MovieManiax Awards’08!

As the awards come to a close, we thank everyone who has helped us make this endeavor a success. To give back to our readers, we have come up with another contest. All you have to do is to guess who will be the winner in the following six categories. The Categories are:

1. Best Film

2. Best Director

3. Best Actor (Male)

4. Best Actor (Female)

5. Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Male)

6. Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Female)

You can  CLICK HERE to see the nominees.

The first two winners will get DVDs of a Hollywood Classic along with a classic from Hindi Cinema. The 3rd prize is a signed copy of the recently launched – “Happionaire’s Cash The Crash” by Yogesh Chabria.

The goodies don’t end here. We have 4th & 5th prizes as well yay!!!.

These winners will gets copies of Invest The Happionaire Way (ITHW). If requested the Hindi version of ITHW is also available.

A few rules:

1. Members of MM team can not participate.

2.Only one guess per category allowed.

3. In case, no one gets all guesses right, the prize belongs to the one who gets most of the guesses correct.

4. In case of a tie, a tie- breaker will be arranged as per the discretion of MM team 🙂

5. The contest is open till 7th April midnight. The results for The MovieManiax Awards ’08 initially were to be be declared on 7th April but it has been postponed to 9th April, giving you two more days to loot the prizes. 🙂

Go on guess the winner and take away your prize. Best of luck!

P.S. A very Special thanks to Yogesh Chabria for sponsoring the books. The DVDs will be sponsored by Vee.

Edit: Results for this contest have been announced here.

Link Diary: March’ 09

This centrestage link is from my friend, Hypermom, who wrote about women driving in Bangalore.

Manofroma has written a very informative post about a beautiful young woman whose body was found in the coffin in Appian Way. Nothing new about perhaps finding a body in coffin, only her body was as fresh as it must be 15 centuries earlier. Manofroma invites an ‘Indian perspective’ on the same.

March 23 was death anniversary of our martyrs Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. Jai Hind: Proud to be an Indian reminded us on their blog. This is their last year’s detailed post.

For humor, here is a clip called ‘If Three Stooges were Makers‘ from Daily Cup of Tech. Go on visit his post to laugh.

Meanwhile, Vikas has started another blog on river rafting in Rishikesh, hop over his blog to read his adventures in detail. It was a nostalgic experience for me. 🙂

Finally, polling for MovieManiax Awards is still on. Vote now.

Results for MovieManiax Awards will be announced on 7th April.

P.S: This is the shortest link dairy post I have ever done.

Polls Are Live for The MovieManiax Awards’08

The voting is now open for the much-awaited MovieManiax Awards. Do cast your vote here.

The voting lines will be open for 25 days and will close on Sunday 5th April at 00:00 IST. The winners will be declared on April 07, 2009.

The 6 popular categories have an extra option ‘Other’. If you select this option, be sure to enter the name of nominee of your choice in the text entry box.

The MovieManiax Awards’ 08

I, hereby, publicly announce the advent of  MovieManiax Awards’ 08.

The MovieManiax Awards is an initiative to honor the best of Hindi Cinema. The categories are limited and we have not ventured into the technical awards. The nominations under each category have been discussed, scrutinized and finally arrived on conclusion by a team of Bloggers. The rationale behind the nominations was to bring in the best before you irrespective of Box-Office status.

You, my reader,  are the Judge.

Awards and an Interview

Smita awarded me with what she called a PROXIMITY award:

This award is given to a blog that invests and believes in PROXIMITY – nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.