What are the BOBs?
The BOBs are the world’s largest international Weblog awards for Weblogs, podcasts and videoblogs. The awards are given out in 11 different languages:

Arabic
Bengali
Chinese
German
English
French
Indonesian
Persian
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish

So do you only accept blogs in these 11 languages?
Yes

Why do you include these languages and not others?
We began with seven languages in 2004 and have been expanding ever since. We are of course constrained by our editorial resources. Each language has its own editor who monitors the site year-round. There is also an separate jury member for each language category. Hopefully we will be expanding in the future to include more languages.

Who organizes the BOBs?
The BOBs are organized by Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international public broadcaster. The mission of Deutsche Welle is to “provide a forum in Europe and other continents on important issues, with the aim of fostering understanding and exchange between cultures and peoples.” DW broadcasts via radio, television and online in 31 languages. About 1,500 people from more than 60 countries work at DW.

Are the BOBs free?
Yes. There is no commercial aspect to the BOBs.

Why do you organize the BOBs?
Deutsche Welle was one of the first German broadcasters to begin offering news and information through Weblogs and podcasts. Blogs and podcasts are reflections of the growing net culture, and we here at the BOBs are interested in creating a cross-cultural resource for all Internet users. Our mission is to encourage a global online dialogue – regardless of language. Another goal of the BOBs is to support the spread of freedom of expression, information and the press worldwide, especially in countries where such freedoms are limited.

What makes the BOBs different from other awards?
There are a lot of things that make the BOBs stand out.
1. The number of languages: English may be the language of the Internet, but if you want to hold an international competition than you need a multi-lingual team and jury.
2. Not just online voting: Winners of the BOBs are decided by online voting and a jury of experts. This is especially critical because of the chance for manipulation of online voting. That is why we award a people’s choice and a jury winner.
3. Our mission: We do not just do this for fun – though we do have a lot of fun with the project. Our mission is to provoke a dialogue.

What does the BOBs stand for?
BOBs stands for Best of the Blogs.

Am I immediately nominated when I submit my blog?
No, not really. First each submission is checked by an editor to make sure the blog fits our criteria: No spam-blogs, no fake blogs and certainly no blogs containing illegal or racist material. Once your blog has gone through the editorial process you can then nominate yourself or perhaps another Blogopedia user will nominate you. Then it is up to the jury members to decide.

How do you choose your jury members?
It is not easy to find jury members who are not only a blogger, podcaster or videoblogger but experts who are respected in their respective blogospheres. They need to be able to nominate great blogs, be able to speak English and be free to come to Berlin at the end of November.

How does the Jury meeting work?
All jury members sit together at a big table in a conference room. Over the course of a long day, the jury discusses each prize category, state whom they think is the “Best” and then they vote. The BOBs team don't vote themselves, so can't influence the jury's decision. The only exception to this rule would be if there was a tie, but thankfully that has never happened.

What are the criteria for the jury?
Here are a the bullet points the jury will use in making their evaluations:
1. Prose (Linguistic expertise, intelligibility, timeliness, transparency, authenticity)
2. Creativity (Originality of topic, humor, use of new style elements)
3. Design (Appropriate design, use of multimedia elements: animations, graphics, audio, video)
4. User Friendliness (Interactivity, usability, linking, commentary functions, other useful properties)
The aspects listed above are not a comprehensive list and should be used as general guidelines for the jury's decision. But often the criteria that make a blog really stand out are indefinable.

Can an international jury really judge blogs in another language?
Of course! Your jury member will be someone who can fully explain your blog or podcast to the rest of the jury. Then the candidates will be discussed and the blog with the majority of support in the jury wins. Don't worry: these bloggers know a good blog when they see it!

How does the competition work?
First we send out a call for the best blogs, podcasts and videoblogs in the world. These can come direct from the blogger or from users. After the nomination phase, it is up to the jury member to sort through the nominations to find the best ten in each category. Then the final list will be put online (with an English description) so that users can begin their voting. The jury will decide the winners in Berlin.

Will you use my email address for spam?
No way! If you sign up for the newsletter, you will receive no more than 3-4 emails a year from the BOBs. But we do need an email in order to contact bloggers who have been nominated or have won.

What is the Blogopedia?
Featuring a growing inventory of blogs written in eleven languages, the Blogopedia allows you to browse through the catalogue by country, language or subject matter.

How good is your Blogmap?
Our Blogmap is the biggest and best of its kind. It is more than just a geographical view of the global blogosphere that you can zoom in and out of. You can also search through the blogs according to language, category, tags and country.

Will you be passing on my data?
No way!

So who are the people behind the BOBs?
Our team is made up of about 18 people. Gabriel and Petra do much of the organization and write a lot of the texts. Mathias is our tech and design genius. Sven covers our sponsoring. Steffen handles PR. Gero and Jürgen organize the public ceremony in Berlin. But our most important team members are the language editors. They are: Zahi (Arabic), Yuelei (Chinese), Kate (English), Anne (French), Yuniman (Indonesian), Frank (Dutch), Mahmood (Persian), Rodrigo (Portuguese), Marina (Russian) and José Antonio (Spanish).

So can I link to you guys?
We would be honored. We also have buttons!

So how do I tag your site?
We are known around the world as the “BOBs” or with the respective year as “BOBs08.” And our boss would love it of you tagged “Deutsche Welle.”

So whom do I contact when I have a question?
Just use our feedback page and one of our editors will answer you. We speak your language.

What if I am interested in sponsoring the BOBs?
Great! We have a lot of options we can discuss!

Thanks and happy blogging!