The Courier, James Logan's online, blog-style student news publication, has won the Best Education Weblog Award in the 2007 Weblog Awards competition.
The Courier beat nine other finalists in the category to be named winner of the award last night at Blogworld and New Media Expo, a weblog industry convention and trade show held in Las Vegas through tonight.
The Courier garnered 1,371 votes in the balloting that determined the winner. The second place website, IvyGate, which serves the colleges and the universities of the Ivy League, such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton, received 690 votes. Third place Education Week received 166 votes.
The Weblog Awards are the world's largest blog competition, with over 525,000 votes cast in the 2006 edition for finalists in 45 categories. Nominations for 49 categories ended October 17 and voting began November 1.
Courier Advisor Patrick Hannigan, who nominated the student news operation for the award, said he is "pleased and gratified that the hard work of the student journalists who produce The Courier have been recognized.. It's particularly nice that these high school students from a diverse, working-class public high school were able to come out ahead of the Ivy League."
"Since the winner was determined by online voting, it's clear that the award is awarded based on popularity and reader loyalty. But being a popular site with loyal readers seems like a good thing to me," Hannigan said.
"We owe a debt of gratitude to our readers and supporters who took the time to vote for us. We are really very grateful," Hannigan said.
He thanked Principal Don Montoya for helping publicize The Courier's selection as a finalist and helping to get out the vote. He also thanked New Haven Rick LaPlante for letting the entire New Haven school district community know.
While the staff was celebrating their victory Friday, a reporter from the Argus called to get some quotes for a story on the award. Courier Editor-in-Chief Christina La told the reporter that she, too, is proud of the students' hard work.
The main prize for getting the award is "bragging rights," said Hannigan. "Plus, we get to display a badge proclaiming us the winner."
According to wikipedia, a weblog, or "blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
"Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) and are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts.
"As of September 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 106 million blogs."
In the 2007 Weblog Awards, 545,446 votes were cast in 49 categories over six days of voting that ended Thursday afternoon.
The full list of winners includes:
General Categories
Best Blog: PostSecret
Best New Blog: Jammie Wearing Fool
Best Individual Blogger: Glenn Reynolds - InstaPundit
Funniest Blog: Sadly, No!
Best Comic Strip: xkcd
Behttp://www.jameslogancourier.org/nucleus/images/button-italic.gifst Online Community: Fark
Best Liberal Blog; Talking Points Memo
Best Conservative Blog: Ace of Spades HQ
Best Political Coverage: RealClearPolitics
Best Celebrity Blogger:Gilbert Arenas
Topic Area Categories
Best Technology Blog : Winner not yet determined
Best Sports Blog: Kissing Suzy Kolber
Best Military Blog: Michael Yon
Best Law Blog: Above the Law
Best Business Blog: Club for Growth
Best LGBT Blog: Joe My God
Best Parenting Blog Amalah
Best Education Blog: James Logan Courier
Best Science Blog Tie: Climate Audit and Bad Astronomy Blog
Best Medical/Health Issues Blog: Baldy's Blog
Best Religious Blog: What Does the Prayer Really Say?
Best Pet Blog: Bazzy Boy, Racing Legend of Sorts
Best Food Blog: Serious Eats
Arts & Letters Categories
Best Photo Blog: Zombietime
Best Culture Blog: The Cool Hunter
Best Literature Blog: Neil Gaiman's journal
Best Diarist: Dooce
Best Gossip Blog: The Bastardly
Best Music Blog: Sterogum
Best Podcast:This Week in Tech
Best Video Blog: Crooks & Liars
Video Of The Year: HamNation - Sopranos DC
International Categories
Best Canadian Blog: Small Dead Animals
Best UK Blog: Neil Clark
Best European Blog(Non UK); Retecool
Best Asian Blog: Marina's Bloggariffic
Best Middle East or Africa Blog: Michael J. Totten - Middle East Journal
Best Australia or New Zealand Blog Tim Blair
Best Latino, Caribbean, or South American Blog: The Real Cuba
TTLB Ecosystem Based Categories
Best of the Top 250 Blogs: Ballon Juice
Best of the Top 251 - 500 Blogs: TBogg
Best of the Top 501 - 1000 Blogs: Woman Honor Thyself
Best of the Top 1001 - 1750 Blogs: Echidne of the Snakes
Best of the Top 1751 - 2500 Blogs: A Blog For All
Best of the Top 2501 - 3500 Blogs: Creek Running North
Best of the Top 3501 - 5000 Blogs:Durham in Wonderland
Best of the Top 5001 - 6750 Blogs: Simply Left Behind
Best of the Top 6751 - 8750 Blogs:Gus Van Horn
Best of the Rest of the Blogs (8751+): Slublog
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