The 190 finalists for the sixth Singapore Blog Awards have been unveiled. Voting has begun in fervour, with bloggers rallying on their own blogs and leveraging on various social media platforms to garner support.
Organised by Singapore’s leading news and entertainment portal, omy.sg, the award is presented by Panasonic this year, the second year the global brand has been fronting this exciting campaign to engage the online community.
The theme for the event is “60s Fever”, in line with this year being the sixth year of the Singapore Blog Awards. The award ceremony will be held at the chic Shanghai Dolly club in July.
Official hashtag on Twitter and Instagram is #omysba2013.
Voting is now open till 23 June 2013. Visit http://sgblogawards.omy.sg for more information. Voters stand to win attractive prizes like speakers from JBL.
Last Friday (5 April), the annual Singapore Blog Awards returned for the sixth year with more exciting events and prizes. Bloggers stand to win a trip, inclusive of air tickets and accommodation, to the Northern Territory, Australia, among other attractive prizes worth a grand total of over S$35,000.
Organised by omy.sg (www.omy.sg), Singapore Press Holdings’ leading bilingual news and entertainment portal, and presented by Panasonic, the Singapore Blog Awards honours independent content producers who devote their time and energy to create and maintain informative and innovative blogs.
There is a total of ten main categories, two celebrity categories and seven special categories. A complete list of award categories can be found on the official website.
This year, omy.sg introduces the “Best Microblog” award, a brand new addition to the ten main categories of Singapore Blog Awards, created to acknowledge the increasing popularity of short format blogging platforms like Twitter and Weibo.
The two celebrity categories, “Panasonic Most Popular Local Celebrity Blog/Microblog” and “Panasonic Most Popular Overseas Celebrity Blog/Microblog”, will be determined entirely by public voting.
The seven special categories are organised together with different sponsors, challenging bloggers to participate in specific blogging assignments to make the Singapore Blog Awardmore fun and engaging for everyone.
For instance, finalists in the “Panasonic Best Cooking Blog will be required to showcase their culinary flairs and those in the “Glossi Best Modelling Blog” will be required to best model and showcase Glossi eye wears.
Other special categories include “Panasonic Best Eco-Challenge Blog”; “Panasonic Best Beauty Blog”; “Qoo10 Best Online Shopping Blog”; “Levi’s Best 501 Interpretation Blog”; and “JBL Best Pop/Music Blog”.
Lee Kuan Fung, Head, Chinese Newspapers Division Digital Strategy, Singapore Press Holdings, said: “Blog content is diverse in nature, fusing written text, still images, as well as videos to bring about a dynamic reading experience. Leveraging on the advent of social media, bloggers are now able to propagate their content to wider and more diverse audiences. As the Singapore Blog Awards enters into the sixth year, omy.sg‘s commitment to reward and develop outstanding independent content producers remains and is more resolute than ever.”
Nomination and registration is now open till 10 May, followed by a voting and judging phase which will end in June. This year’s Singapore Blog Awards will see a series of exciting events in the months leading to the finale event in July. These include three bloggers’ workshops hosted by Panasonic, various movie previews with Shaw as well as a slew of other engaging events organised with sponsors.
The theme for this year is “60s Fever”, in line with this year being the sixth year of theSingapore Blog Awards. The award ceremony will be held at the chic Shanghai Dolly club in July.
We have all read horror stories of diva bloggers misbehaving, demanding fees from restaurants for positive paid reviews, bringing along many friends to eat for free at food tasting, among many other complaints. Likewise, there are positive stories of bloggers who spend considerable efforts maintaining and crafting quality entries on their blogs out of interest rather than for commercial gains.
With the advent of social media and digital media, more and more brands are looking to working with and engaging bloggers for their campaigns and publicity.
Where do bloggers strike the balance? How should brands leverage on this trend? Why not hear it from the bloggers themselves?
Me moderating a panel of bloggers at SPH News Centre (picture via omy.sg)
As a prelude to the launch of the 6th Singapore Blog Awards this year in April, the team at omy.sg organised a causal sharing and networking session with a panel of prominent bloggers in Singapore. I was the moderator for the panel discussion.
Check out the full video recording below if you missed the event:
Personally, I think the panelist did a great job and were candid with their replies. If there were more time, we could have gone deeper into the topic and stir up more controversy.
The conclusion I draw is regardless of your motive for blogging, a common arduous task is how to grow your readers base or get yourself noticed by organisations and people that matters.
One shortcut is of course to join a blog awards (shamelessly plugging for the Singapore Blog Awards).
This is sweet validation for the hard work that the omy.sg team put in over the past year.
More details are available in the press release below:
Singapore, 24 November 2010 — Singapore Press Holdings’ (SPH) today scored big at the inaugural Asian Digital Media Awards (ADMA) 2010.
SPH picked up a total of 10 awards at the ADMA 2010, organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) in conjunction with the second Digital Media Asia Conference. The awards, presented today at 7pm at Velvet Underground @ Zouk, attracted over 120 entries from 53 media companies across 13 countries.
The ADMA acknowledged the best of how individuals and organisations embraced new technology, innovative thinking and creativity in digital media in Asia.
SPH topped the Best in Mobile Media Award (Mobile Publishing) categories with The New Paper Football Kaki, SoShiok.com and Stomp clinching a Gold, Silver and Bronze award respectively. The award honoured the best and more innovative services offered by a newspaper publisher on a mobile platform.
SPH also made a clean sweep of the Best in Social Media Award (Innovative Use of Social Media) with omy.sg, the bilingual news and interactive web portal, clinching a Gold and a Bronze award. straitstimes.com bagged a Silver in the same category. This was omy.sg’s second accolade within a month, following its recent win of two silver awards at the 2010 W3 Awards in October.
Kuan Fung and I, collecting omy.sg's Innovative Use of Social Media wins
Stomp (Straits Times Online Mobile Print), the leading citizen-journalism website in Asia, clinched a Bronze for Best in Digital Content (User Generated Content). The award evaluated the capacity of a media company for attracting and publishing relevant content from their readers and users.
Demonstrating its strength in cross media marketing, SPH picked up three Best in Cross Media awards. omy.sg’s “Four Heavenly King Food Contest” scored a Bronze Award for Best in Cross Media (Cross Media Editorial Coverage) while SPH’s two promotion campaigns – Night Out 2010 and Fashion Season @ Orchard 2010, won a Gold and Bronze Award for Best in Cross Media (Cross Media Advertising) respectively.
Night Out 2010 fulfilled the advertiser Singapore Tourism Board (STB)’s objective to change local perceptions that Singapore has nothing exciting to offer after dark by showcasing a variety of exciting night activities beyond shopping. It involved a host of SPH’s multimedia products such as print (The Straits Times, The Straits Times Urban, Lianhe Zaobao and The New Paper), online (AsiaOne network), on air (Radio 100.3) as well as on mobile (location-based advertising).
The Fashion Season @ Orchard promotion campaign aimed to celebrate fashion and drive retail sales for Orchard Road. It involved cross media platforms including print ads (The Straits Times, The Straits Times Urban, Her World, Female and Nuyou magazines), online (AsiaOne Diva, Rednano and The Straits Times Razor TV), as well as out-of-home media and events via SPH MediaBoxOffice outdoor digital screens and its events arm.
Mr Alan Chan, CEO of SPH, said: “It is heartening to see that SPH’s commitment to develop and enhance our new media products has paid off. Being recognised by industry professionals is a testament to our dedication in providing the best digital media offerings to both our users and advertisers. I wish to thank our staff who are always looking for new and exciting ways to grow our products and engage our audiences.”
Awards won by SPH at the Asian Digital Media Awards 2010
Third year I have seen this ghost - so much so it's endearing to see her again 🙂
For the past two years, the costumed ghosts were generally placed in more predictable spots and on a fixed stretch of route on the tram ride.
This year, the costumed ghosts were placed randomly. When I say random, I really mean it. The ghosts seemed to pop out everywhere – at random points along the tram ride, somethings even between animal enclosures; along the empty pavement you are walking on; and even from behind harmless looking signboards.
This year, a few of the ghosts managed to make me jump. A difficult feat as I am a very calm and composed person. Kudos to the organisers this year! 🙂
Queuing for the tram rideMe in the queueThis year, some of the costume ghosts spook you before the tram starts moving offEntering a Chinese Opera ghost section on the tram rideBloodied eyes ghost spotted along the tram rideFat lady ghostManequins were placed as decoys to confuse us with the roaming ghostsThis guy spooked me quietlyNot too sure why this ghost is carrying a musical instrumentDude with a large axeFunny shot of one of the ghost trying to block my camera
I like it that the Halloween walking trail this year managed to incorporate some of the animal enclosures into the setup, making the trail longer and more unpredictable.
Entrance to the walking trailManaged to spot this dude before he jump outAnother one standing in wait This dude is seated really low, but I still managed to spot himThe snakes enclosure was converted into some sort of haunted caves showcaseSpotted Medusa in the snake enclosure - how apt!
I also like it that there are more Halloween attractions added this year – like the Haunted Mansion at the Singapore Zoo for instance. I did not get to visit it as we arrived rather late, but I am sure it is a blast.
Rachel and I caught the Creatures of the Night Show though. We have seen this a few times and it is still as entertaining and refreshing with each visit. Rachel particularly loves the Asian small-clawed otters segment where they picked up empty drink cans and bottles to chuck them into recycling bins. She will be going “Oh so cuteeeee……” throughout the performance.
Rachel and I before the show startedBinturong, or Asian bearcat, that smells of pandan leavesA civet cat with a very strong sense of smell, sniffing out an odourless grape from the boy's handsA Hyena lifting a giant tree branchGiant pythonWrapping the python around this American touristRaccoonsRachel's favourite segment of the show featuring the adorable ottersThe otter picking up more cans
Specially for Halloween, the Grim Reaper and a slew of other scary costumed characters also made their appearances at the Creatures of the Night Show.
Fire-eatersThe Grim Reaper and some fancy laser beam show
If you would like to visit Halloween Horrors at Night Safari, you still have till this Sunday (31 Oct) to do so. Book your tickets online first to avoid disappointment at the door. At the time of this post, only tickets for 29 and 31 Oct are still available for online booking.
A L V I N O L O G Y 