Taiwanderful Announces The Best Taiwan Blogs 2008

It’s been a while since it actually took place, but I was busy as the time and I still want to write something about it.  This was the “press release” issued :

Results of the 2008 Taiwan Blog Awards

The results of the 2008 Taiwan Best Blog Awards have been announced. The awards are for English language blogs related to Taiwan.
Voting took place over the month of October at the Taiwanderful website. There were 35 eligible blogs in eight categories. The overall award for best blog went to the New Hampshire Bushman. The full list of winning blogs follows.

Best Taiwan Blog 2008

The New Hampshire Bushman (http://www.thenhbushman.com/)

Best Taiwan Education Blog 2008

Mandarin Scholarship Taiwan (http://mandarinscholarship.com/)

Best Taiwan General Blog 2008

The Wild East (http://www.thewildeast.net/applications/wordpress/)

Best Taiwan Other Blog 2008

Poohat and the 10 billions years before the sun blew up (http://www.poohat.blogspot.com/)

Best Taiwan Personal Blog 2008

Mouse Eared Kiwi in Taipei (http://taipeiblog.sandra.net.nz/)

Best Taiwan Photography Blog 2008

Taiwan Photographers (http://www.taiwanphotographers.wordpress.com/)

Best Taiwan Politics Blog 2008

Taiwan Matters! (http://taiwanmatters.blogspot.com/)

Best Taiwan Religion Blog 2008

SQJ Taipei (http://pagels.teamexpansion.org/sqjtaipei/)

Best Taiwan Travel Blog 2008

The Daily Bubble Tea (http://thedailybubbletea.com/)

The awards aim to highlight some of the best English language blogs about Taiwan. There are hundreds more blogs and English language bloggers in Taiwan. They contribute some of the most comprehensive up-to-date information about Taiwan on a wide range of topics, from travel through politics to culture.
The blogs combine personal commentary, photography and video. Blogs are a unique form of promotion for Taiwan.

Full details of the awards are available at http://www.taiwanderful.net/blog/best-blogs-taiwan-2008-final-results

It was fun watching the process unfold, even though, honestly, the blog awards didn’t get as much attention and promote cr0ss-blog link love as I was hoping it would, but hopefully things would improve next year. I atleast got to know a few decent blogs through the awards process. Taiwanderful now has a nice collection of interesting Taiwan blogs and maybe with time it will grow into something more significant.

As for my personal preference, among the blogs registered at Taiwanderful (all are on my RSS reader which now includes almost a 150 Taiwan blogs), the following are the ones I enjoy following the most (in no particular order):

• That’s Impossible – Politics from Taiwan
• Taiwan Matters!
• Keywords
• David on Formosa
• The Only Redhead in Taiwan
• My Several Worlds
• The Daily Bubble Tea
• The NH Bushman

This was another step in trying to promote the Taiwan blogosphere. Previous posts and ideas included :

General

• The Taiwan Blogosphere – Something really great’s happening here
• The Taiwan Blogosphere : My reading list
• English Taiwan : The websphere, the blogosphere, traffic, SEO and the need for a profound change
• Taiwan’s English Blogosphere – Introducing Expat Bloggers to local Taiwanese
• Expat English language Blogs in Taiwan continued

Taiwanderful and Taiwanderful features

• Life’s Taiwanderful : Introducing Taiwanderful – the Taiwan guide
• Introducing a Taiwan Blog Directory on a Google Map
• Looking for something about Taiwan? try the Taiwan blog search

Top Bloggers

• English language Taiwan blogs : The top bloggers 2007
• Taiwan Best Blog Awards 2008
• Best Taiwan blog awards – Voting now open on Taiwanderful

Which just goes to say that if you have any idea that would help promote the little blogosphere please let me know and I’d be happy to help you make it happen.

Thanks to anyone who gave me feedback, offered help and encouragement and took part in the process. Congratulations to the winners. See you, hopefully, next year.