The Word is out
Ladies and Gentlemen, the wait is over. The hectic final voting spell spread over a week that also saw a repoll for the Best Designed Indiblog category — an unprecedented event in the history of the Indibloggies — is finally over and we are all set to declare the results. The public poll, thanks to the sophisticated poll script that we used this year, demanded that you unearthed all those email IDs that you created but never used, including those "2 minute" mailinator ones. And those who only had that lone yahoo ID since years were also delighted to get the additional Yahoo ID. It was, all in all, a peaceful poll with no untoward incidents. A record 1278 people registered for the poll but only 892 actually cast their vote, by virtue of those "a@b.com" email ID that were used to register and those cookies resting on your machine, I am happy that they could verify that the system was quite hard-wearing, the polls couldn’t be sturdier than this, IMHO.
And since I don’t want to irk you with anecdotes of innocent emails that ranged from "I just got the voting link. How do I nominate the sites?" to "Hey the link is not working" to "I never voted but got a mail saying thanks for voting" to "I won’t vote", here are the results:
IndiBlog of the year [Tally]
India Uncut is the Best Indiblog at the Indibloggies 2005. Amit Varma, author of India Uncut and a Mumbai based journalist is a maverick of quick posts and anything that starts with a "C", cows and cricket for instance. He not only bagged 25% of the votes cast for the category but also has the distinction to bag 225 votes, the highest number of votes bagged by any blog/site in this competition (yes, we know that voting for this category was mandatory but we are talking statistics here) and emerged a clear winner. Such fun! Amit wins
- One copy of BlogJet weblog client worth $39.95 from DiFolders Software
- Cory Doctorow’s book Someone Comes to Town, Someone leaves Town
- A copy of The Big Moo : Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable by Seth Godin and 32 other renowned authors.
- One Indibloggies T-shirt sponsored by Sakshi Juneja
Best Topical IndiBlog [Tally]
Mumbai based ace journalist, Sonia Faleiro (wow, the journos seem to have hijacked these awards 
) is the winner of this category and wins:
- A copy of the book “At Home in the World : Collected Writings from The Wall Street Journal” by Daniel Pearl and gifted by Dilip D’Souza.
- One Indibloggies T-Shirt sponsored by Sakshi Juneja.
- A copy of The Big Moo : Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable by Seth Godin and 32 other renowned authors.
Best Humanities IndiBlog [Tally]
Jabberwock, the witty, no-nonsensical (ya, forget whatever Lewis Carroll said) blog of Jai Arjun, a Delhi based journalist. Jai wins:
- Cory Doctorow’s book Someone Comes to Town, Someone leaves Town
- One Indibloggies T-Shirt sponsored by Sakshi Juneja.
Best Science/Technology IndiBlog [Tally]
- A Windows Mobile based smartphone worth Rs.19000/- sponsored by Microsoft India
- One Exam simulator of his choice presented by Whizlabs
- One Indibloggies T-Shirt sponsored by Sakshi Juneja.
The first runner up blog in this category Digital Inspiration wins a copy of Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition worth $299 sponsored by Microsoft India. This and the second runner up blog Michael Parekh on IT also win one Exam Simulator each, of their choice, sponsored by Whizlabs.
Best IndiBlog directory/service/clique [Tally]
Indiblog with the best Tagline [Tally]
- A 25 MB hosting package worth Rs.1000/- from Web1 Solutions
- One Indibloggies T-Shirt sponsored by Sakshi Juneja
The public opinion seemed quite divided on this category, with all the blogs in the fray finishing very close. This was one category that cheesed off a lot of people and this is probably the last time it appears at the Indibloggies.
Best Designed IndiBlog [Tally]
- An award Rs.500/- from Ganesh of Rupya.com.
- One Indibloggies T-Shirt sponsored by Sakshi Juneja.
Best New Indiblog [Tally]
The best new Indiblog is Meenakshi Agarwal’s spicy food blog Hooked on Heat. Meenakshi wins:
- An award of Rs 500/- from Amit Agarwal, author of Digital Inspiration
- One Indibloggies T-Shirt sponsored by Sakshi Juneja.
Best Photo Blog [Tally]
- A copy of BlogJet weblog client worth $39.95 from DiFolders Software
- One Indibloggies T-Shirt sponsored by Sakshi Juneja.
Best Sports IndiBlog [Tally]
Sight Screen a group blog with authors such as Arjun Swarup and Prem Panicker. The blog representative wins a 25MB hosting package worth Rs.1000/- from Web1 Solutions and one Indibloggies T-shirt sponsored by Sakshi Juneja.
IndiBloggies 2005 lifetime achiever [Tally]
- One copy of BlogJet weblog client worth $39.95 from DiFolders Software
- A copy of the book “Naked Conversations : How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers” by Robert Scoble & Shel Isreal gifted by Venky Krishnamoorthy (Indibloggies recommends you to remain dressed while reading the book, the following award may come handy)
- One Indibloggies T-Shirt sponsored by Sakshi Juneja.
Best Group Blog [Tally]
Best Indic blog [Hindi] [Tally]
Mumbai Blog won in this category with 44% votes. Shashi Singh, the author, wins:
- Copies of three books, Shakuntala: Smriti Jaal by Namita Gokhale, Jannat aur Anya Kahaniyan by Khushwant Singh and Hamara Hissa, a collection of stories edited by Arun Prakash presented by Shail.
- One year registration for a new .IN domain (worth Rs.750) from Amit Gupta.
- Navneet Bakshi’s book “Mein bhi bana Minister”
- Sushma Jagmohan’s Hindi novel “Zindagi Email”.
The runner up blog, Anup Shukla’s Fursatiya wins:
- Sushma Jagmohan’s Hindi novel “Zindagi Email”.
- Navneet Bakshi’s book “Mein bhi bana Minister”
Best Indic blog [Kannada] [Tally]
Kanndave Nitya
Best Indic blog [Malayalam] [Tally]
Kalesh’s World
Best Indic blog [Marathi] [Tally]
The winner blog is Marathi Sahitya and wins one copy each of P.L.Desphpande’s Marathi books Poorvarang and Apoorvaaii from Marathi Blog Vishwa.
The runner up blog is Disamaji Kahitari… wins P.L.Deshpande Marathi book Jaave Tyanchyaa Deshaa presented by Marathi Blog Vishwa.
Best Indic blog [Tamil] [Tally]
Mugamoodi
Best Indic blog [Telugu] [Tally]
Amazing Telugus wins an award of Rs.1000/- from Kiran Kumar Chava
Hearty congratulations to all the Winners! Thanks also to all the sponsors for being associated with and adding glory to Indiblogging. My heartfelt thanks to all the Jurors for your time and efforts. I also convey thanks to Jitendra Chaudhary to bear the postage costs for the gifts being sent by the Indibloggies. The money donated by Dr.Vivek Kochikar would be kept in buffer and utilized in paying the hosting costs next year on.
- Winner may collect their award-badges here.
- All prizes would be sent to Indian destinations only.
- All winners are requested to send an email at indibloggies at gmail dot com with subject “PRIZE CLAIM 2005″ with their complete postal address.
- Please allow 4-6 weeks for the gifts to reach you, no intermediate correspondence on this delivery status of the awards please.
- Some other pending awards would be added to this post later.
- We do not take responsibility for loss of gifts in transit. Gifts cannot be exchanged for cash. We reserve the right to alter or cancel any or all of the awards mentioned above. No objections would be entertained.
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