ARUTZ SHEVA ON THE JIBS: By the way, remember that the voting for the JIBS closes on May 16 at 10 pm US EDT.

Jewish Blog Awards Empower Alternative Voices

by Arutz-7 Staff

(IsraelNN.com) The Jewish and Israeli blogosphere – that is – the virtual world created by self-published web-logs, called blogs, has mushroomed in recent years and now has its own annual awards.

The blog phenomenon has changed the face of Israeli and Jewish media, as Federation-owned papers or Israeli news agencies influenced or run by the government no longer have a monopoly on information.

Critics note that blogs lack accountability, but the annual Jewish and Israeli Blog (JIBs) Awards at least allow blogs to be rated by blog-readers in accordance with their evaluation of their published material.

Israel National Radio interviewed “Akiva” from the Mystical Paths blog – the lead site operator of the 2007 JIB awards – who says the awards function to provide recognition for bloggers.

“Bloggers invest a lot of their time in their blogs,” he said. “For some people this is a passion. They spend hours a day writing and interacting with their readers to put up interesting stuff. A lot of that related to Israel, a lot of that relates to Judaism – from all perspectives. And they are very excited to say ‘Hey, someone thinks I’m doing something good – someone appreciates it.’”

Akiva says that while some bloggers receive much feedback through comments, others, with less interactive readership or without comments enabled, get their only feedback through the JIBs. “This is a chance for them to say ‘Someone out there thinks I’m doing something good.’”

The site operator says there have been many people contacting him in recent weeks complaining that they were not nominated. “There are lots of great blogs out there,” Akiva says, “but unfortunately, we didn’t pick ‘em. We asked people who they would like to vote for and had open nominations.”

Any reader, or even the bloggers themselves, were invited to submit nominations via the JIB web site. The nominations for each category were compiled, with multiple groups created in some categories to accommodate the sheer number of nominees. At the end of the preliminary voting, only the top blogs in each group in each category were advanced to the finals.

The number of Jewish and Israel-related blogs (in English) is around 1,200, Akiva says, “with 400 really active, with readers and everything.”

What is the secret to successful blogging? “It is about finding a niche where people want to hear what you have to say,” Akiva says. He concedes that blogs examining scandals in the Jewish world are some of the most popular “because everyone loves reading about problems,” but points out that most of the blogs that have reached the finals are about personal Jewish experiences and positive messages about Israel.

Technorati Tag: Blogging and JBlogosphere and JIBs.