Lonely Planet travel blog awards

Congratulations to all TBEX members nominated in the Lonely Planet travel blog awards.

It's a big name to be associated with and being nominated with other good sites is a real honour for Linda and me.

What do you think about them?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kim Mance, Founder of TBEX on February 26, 2009 at 7:38am

I'm really excited so many TBEXers are nominated too and I think the awards will be a boon for whoever wins in each category -- I can see why everyone is excited about them!

It seems like the folks at LP running the contest realized they should have used the same 50/50 judging criteria for the nominations too, not just open voting -- which seems right to me.

The trick now for nominees is to not alienate users and friends in the blogosphere by over-pimping the voting link. So many contests have happened over the last few months there's a little bit of fatigue about them. Readers who do not blog, or didn't get nominated might tune out of a blogger's content if it gets annoying. (I say all this as someone licking the wound of Galavanting TV not being nominated finalist for videos...not as a gloating nominee :)

PS: What are we going to do about that bot?? Looks like LP deleted several hundred of their votes already, but seriously, that doesn't seem right! Shouldn't that be grounds for disqualification?

Permalink Reply by Matthew Cashmore on February 26, 2009 at 6:16pm

Hi there - hope you don't mind me crashing in here.

I'm actually stunned that people are cheating - shouldn't surprised I guess - but as for precautions each time you vote we set a cookie and we log your IP address so you 'shouldn't' be able to vote again - but with any voting systems - especially easy online ones like this there are always ways around the tech.

Practically this means that we're monitoring votes and logs and removing votes we think are fraudulent - the problem with disqualifying blogs that have lots of dodgy votes is that it's a very easy way to knock-out your competitors! Set up a bot to vote for their site and watch them get disqualified.

This is the reason that public voting only accounts for 50% of the vote - and why the number of votes you get doesn't matter - http://lplabs.com/2009/02/25/how-were-working-out-the-votes-for-the... - what matters is where you come - 1st, 2nd etc.

I will continue to remove votes we believe are fraudulent and I hope that together we can ensure as fair a voting system as is possible.

If you do have any specific concerns about votes drop me an email or twit me and I'll look into it.

FYI - I'm on the way to San Francisco tomorrow so I'll be offline for a couple of days.

m

Permalink Reply by Craig Martin on February 26, 2009 at 6:31pm

Matt, I don't think anyone here minds you "crashing in". We're all very thankful for the PR opportunities Lonely Planet is giving the travel niche. This will go further than the few nominated blogs - if Lonely Planet announces the winners in a press release, event, etc it will lift the public awareness of the whole niche.

Permalink Reply by Kim Mance, Founder of TBEX on February 26, 2009 at 6:36pm

Hi Matthew, thanks for crashing in! :)

Permalink Reply by Matthew Cashmore on February 26, 2009 at 6:38pm

anytime - always happy to crash a party.

Permalink Reply by Kara Williams on February 26, 2009 at 7:43am

Amen, Kim! I've stopped following people on Twitter who pimp for votes every day, multiple times a day. It gets REALLY old!

There's a bot on LP? I know of one being used to use another "best travel blog" contest, but would have thought LP could have/would have set up precautions.... Oh, how sad. If someone is using bots on LP, honestly, I think the enter LP contest should go by wayside... silly.

Permalink Reply by Kara Williams on February 26, 2009 at 8:01am

I know of one being used to WIN another "best travel blog" contest.... (no coffee yet!!)

Permalink Reply by SammyK on February 26, 2009 at 8:02am

Thanks and congrats!

Yeah, I was quite surprised this morning to see a bunch of incoming links from lplabs.com. That's how I found out I was nominated.

Yeah, we've been nominated for junk before, but I've never sent out emails or tweets asking for votes because I am annoyed by people who do. But I tweeted and blogged about this one since LP has an incredible street rep. I think being nominated alone carries a lot of weight, so I'm just happy to be in the ranks! :)

I just hope it doesn't become a popularity content like all the other voting sites. But that's really all voting is anyways.

Permalink Reply by Chris Christensen on February 26, 2009 at 8:39am

I found out on twitter. I only wish I was doing an episode this week to try and get out the vote but I am taking a rare week off while I am in Mexico. I might see if I can record a short special episode and upload it from here in Oaxaca.

Permalink Reply by Authentic Seacoast Resorts on February 26, 2009 at 8:50am

We were excited to see so many of our twitter and TBEX friends nominated for the Lonely Planet travel blog awards.We agree with Kim and Kara on the pimping. We encouraged our twitter followers to vote for all our friends who were nominated yesterday and plan to do one more tweet closer to when the voting closes. Best of luck to all of you!

Permalink Reply by Kara Williams on February 26, 2009 at 10:53am

Thank you Authentic Seacoast Resorts! One Tweet at beginning of contest, one toward the end, sounds like a delightful method to follow.

Frankly, I'm digging Chris Elliott's method. Haven't heard a peep from him about it! Classy, classy guy.

Permalink Reply by Authentic Seacoast Resorts on February 26, 2009 at 11:00am

Thanks, Kara. Yeah, he's so funny. He didn't even know about it until I tweeted a list of our friends who were nominated. Life's a balancing act. All the best to you and the other mamas in the contest.