Creative Commons photo originally derived from “The Tortoise and the Hair” by Lance Webel.
I had a fun time running this BestBlogForward meme together with fellow sponsor Alec from the8thsign, but it’s now time to pick our top two winners.
From the start, I thought we were going to have a hard time judging since everyone made contributions at different levels. However, two exceptional bloggers stood out from the pack by adding the most meaning and utility to this popularity meme. I’ll start from the second place winner…
The second prize winner reminds us that blogging is about creating conversations. He is Napfisk of “No Dependencies / No Logo“. His most popular entry was a critique on the blogosphere’s elites. He wrote a heartfelt passage which scored comments from the likes of Robert Scoble. Now Alec and I agree that Napfisk’s post wasn’t our most favorite post but what really did it for us was the fact he went to read every meme submitted and left a comment on most of your blogs. To us, that’s what this contest is about… getting bloggers to connect to each other.
And now for the first prize winner…
***drum roll please***
She hits home a lot of salient points about blogging for readership, but did especially well in demonstrating how popularity starts with social networking. Striking real conversations and turning them into blog posts is what makes her writing highly connected and meaningful. Having started blogging only this year, Leisa from disambiguity.com has grown readership and relationships fast and furiously.
Congratulations Leisa… you are our first place winner!
To the rest of you, I wish I had more Flickr Pro prizes to hand out… but I don’t. If I ever get a chance to work at Flickr though, I’ll get you guys one each! Thanks for joining in and I hope you found this a meaningful enough meme that your post becomes your consolation. We hope everyone has gotten the chance to look over one another’s blog to learn a thing or two.
Epilogue: Although we only had around 15 bloggers joining this meme (I didn’t boingboing it!), I’m still impressed by the quality of the submissions. Just read my roundup review. It isn’t an easy meme I must add, so I hope it’s driven some additional traffic to your blogs. Keep in touch y’all!
