The Bitácora Awards ceremony is being held yet again this year to reward the best Spanish-language blogs of the season. And yet again, the romantics of blogism put our hands on our heads and remember, nostalgically, those good old days when blogging was a selfless act and digital culture, a form of subculture. Don’t be fooled. I’d also like to be among the winners of the supporting statuette and the ultraportable computer, which are awarded to the best blogs and, especially, to receive the public acknowledgement that an award always implies, whatever it may be and wherever it may come from.

I don’t want to cast doubt on the worthiness of the contesting blogs, nor the merit of those receiving awards, nor the effort of all the bloggers who, post by post, are building up a blogosphere that gives us so much satisfaction. What I do cast doubt upon is that the objective of a contest like this should be to promote the blogosphere. Let’s be serious please. The Bitácora Awards are a marketing exercise for the businesses and institutions that sponsor them (because, is there any better way to appear in the media that to award prizes to the media itself?). An event that, surely for very little money, allows them to associate their brand image to a communication tool which, for the moment, continues to be surrounded by the glamour of all things cool (or, as my hairdresser would say, all things "tendentious"). 

Among the sponsors of the Bitácora Awards there’s a bit of everything. There are initiatives that are openly committed to the blogosphere such as blog-creating communities like OboLogs or Nireblogs (the latter being one of those exciting projects that is kept by a team of programmers who not only love what they do but also blog). There are leading applications, some already firmly established like 11870.com, and other more recent ones that have opened a niche like the killer app Spotify. There are, of course, social projects in the financial sector like the CAMON platform organised by the Caja Mediterráneo’s Acto Social cultural iniatiative or Comunitae’s network of interpersonal loans. There are firms specializing in one of the most promising areas of business on the current web, like advertising on social networks (also known as "social media advertising"): there you’ll find Adoor, BuzzParadise® and the eBay advertising department. There are even some consumer electronics manufacturers like Toshiba and perhaps even the odd free electron like the satirical magazine El Jueves.

The Bitácora Awards 2009 held its opening event on September 7th at the Auditorium in Madrid’s Casa Encendida with a grand gala: lots of press, lots of big and small screen names, lots of Twitter and many major names of the internet’s business community. Starting that date, and continuing until October 30th, it’s the turn of users to vote for their favourite blogs in some of the 23 categories, each of which is supported by one of the sponsor companies. After that first phase of voting, Bitácoras.com will select three finalists from each category. The final winners will be chosen by a Jury and announced during another soirée of the same type, Evento Blog España (EBE), on the 14th of November at a well-known prestigious hotel in Seville.

http://bitacoras.com/premios09