Want to know how to stir up the UK blogging posse in one easy lesson? Start a “Best British Blog” competition.
Reasons why this is a bad idea:
- how the hell do you define what makes a good blog?
- what is a blog anyway?
- with so many different subgenres, surely this is like saying "let’s judge the best foodstuff"
- "Our panel of judges will assess each blog in terms of design, the quality and personality of the writing, and the originality of the links." So design listed before content – is this significant? will people using standard Blogger templates be penalised, even if their content is excellent? and what is an "original" link? we all spot links on other sites and borrow/steal them for our own.
- is this competition going to lead to some people adopting a prize-friendly style instead of their natural form? and will people be linking the Grauniad like mad? (let’s face it, this is only intended to drive traffic to the Grauniad site – look! they’ve already got a link from me)
- the most vexing question of all – will the thought of £1000 prize money encourage us all to abandon our principles and enter anyway?
I’m waiting to see how things pan out over the next few days. It already looks like Tom is going to start a boycott campaign.