Another of them Award Things
It must be the season for award ceremonies. Following swiftly on from the Blubrry podcast awards that we failed to get nominated for, come the 2008 Weblog Awards.
Again these are at the preliminary stage of looking for nominations, and Bassano Clapper has kindly named Sidepodcast in the category Best Online Community. To us this is the best class any blog could ever hope to be nominated in, and it’s not something this site could’ve been considered for this time last year.
We’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating again – the F1 community never ceases to amaze us. Each and every day amazing people do cool stuff like commenting here, emailing Christine, contributing to the Facebook group, adding stuff to Drop.io and getting wildly creative on the Wiki. Let’s not forget the audio too, with regular voicemails, phone calls and guests on the panel. Quite honestly we’ve no idea how anyone finds the time for all the fantastic contributions.
A quick look at the comment totals for the past 30 days shows five people with over 1,000 each and the top person offering up a stunning 2,000 individual comments… in four weeks. That is an unbelievable statistic.
We’re not just talking quantity either. The insight provided daily is second to none, often completely changes our outlook on any given situation and frequently has the two of us in stitches. During the past 12 months we’ve maybe had to moderate no more than a dozen comments and I challenge anyone anywhere to find a nicer or more hard-working group of people on the Internet.
In our eyes of course, this already is the best online community, but apparently for the wider world to understand and appreciate it, we might need to do some button pushing (steady Lou). All that’s required is to click through to the awards site and hit the green ‘plus’ icon beneath the Sidepodcast nomination.
Apparently, the number of nominations received is irrelevant, but one has to ask why have a rating button at all? And as Steven pointed out the other day, an online community that only gets one nomination must be guaranteed to lose.
At time of writing, the total stands at 10 votes. If you have a minute to spare, we’d like to see that go even higher. Your F1 community needs you!
November 6th, 2008 at 19:49 #1 - Alex Andronov said:
I voted
Do I get a badge like they got in the US elections? Or a purple finger like those in Iraq?
November 6th, 2008 at 19:49 #2 - me said:
ahhh, we haven’t given this enough thought clearly.
November 6th, 2008 at 19:52 #3 - Dom said:
Awards time!
Is there a “best cupcake” category too?
November 6th, 2008 at 19:52 #4 - Alex Andronov said:
Last year F1Fanatic got 3.4% of the vote in Best Sports Blog category. So I guess it’s a pretty competitive thing.
November 6th, 2008 at 19:54 #5 - R.G (I shot the sheriff, but I did not shot no Montagny) said:
Badge or no vote, or ‘Oh No they didn’t gets a vote’
November 6th, 2008 at 19:54 #6 - Bassano Clapper said:
A purple finger? Does Cadbury make those, it sounds intriquing
I felt compelled to nominate as, having only been commenting relatively recently, I have felt graciously embraced by the sidepodhugs here as well as the clever stuff that me mentions above
Set the mouse button on launch control folks
November 6th, 2008 at 19:54 #7 - me said:
nope. but there may be such a category in the sidepoddies at the end of the year though.
i think lou’s a shoe-in for that one.
November 6th, 2008 at 19:55 #8 - R.G (I shot the sheriff, but I did not shot no Montagny) said:
Will this currently propell me into the cupboard thats in front of me?
November 6th, 2008 at 19:57 #9 - me said:
that’s okay, there’s bound to be more award sites appearing before the end of the year, we can fail to get nominated for all of ‘em
we should probably resort to bribery if we actually get through.
November 6th, 2008 at 19:58 #10 - me said:
awww. talking of which. dan needs our help:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22534566720#/topic.php?uid=22534566720&topic=6187
November 6th, 2008 at 20:00 #11 - Alex Andronov said:
And on the comments front. I’ve had a very busy week away from Sidepodcast land this week, and now I’m going to be away for two weeks! I fear I may drop off of the list.
But by the time I get back the 2009 season will have begun again with the first round of testing! Hurrah!
November 6th, 2008 at 20:02 #12 - R.G (I shot the sheriff, but I did not shot no Montagny) said:
The donate button gets a whole new meaning
November 6th, 2008 at 20:02 #13 - R.G (I shot the sheriff, but I did not shot no Montagny) said:
Going on holiday eh?
November 6th, 2008 at 20:04 #14 - Dom said:
Your newly found cupcake making skills may come in handy after all.
Now, has anyone here ever posted a cupcake before?
November 6th, 2008 at 20:04 #15 - me said:
you have a grand old time.
is it a coincidence that the seasons just ended?
November 6th, 2008 at 20:07 #16 - Bassano Clapper said:
Maybe you should start from the pits lest you do a Hamilton (what Red light?)
November 6th, 2008 at 20:18 #17 - lou said:
November 6th, 2008 at 20:19 #18 - R.G (I shot the sheriff, but I did not shot no Montagny) said:
Wouldn’t that make me go into the sink?
November 6th, 2008 at 20:19 #19 - lou said:
technically it wasn’t a cupcake
it was a cake 
November 6th, 2008 at 20:23 #20 - R.G (I shot the sheriff, but I did not shot no Montagny) said:
cake, cupcake, taste just as nice
November 6th, 2008 at 20:24 #21 - lou said:
we will never forget you Giggles no matter how long you are away. Have a really good holiday. That’s one way of passing the time throughout the off season
November 6th, 2008 at 20:46 #22 - Bassano Clapper said:
Then you’d probably need full wets on
November 6th, 2008 at 20:47 #23 - R.G (I shot the sheriff, but I did not shot no Montagny) said:
November 6th, 2008 at 21:16 #24 - Scott Woodwiss (HAMILTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON! XD) said:
If anyone’s interested, The Factory has just started on Eurosport
November 6th, 2008 at 21:17 #25 - Steven Roy said:
I have just clicked the little plus thing. We have 17 votes and no-one else has more than one. Most have zero. Things are looking good.
November 6th, 2008 at 21:18 #26 - Bassano Clapper said:
Nominations up to 17
We must have a full grid by the end of the night
(that includes R.G. who’ll be starting from the pits due to his cupboard being in the way)
November 6th, 2008 at 21:31 #27 - lou said:
hehe i watched that the other day
i love The Factory, it’s brilliant.
November 6th, 2008 at 21:32 #28 - Scott Woodwiss (HAMILTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON! XD) said:
especially when this show has stuff about the 2009 car
November 6th, 2008 at 21:34 #29 - R.G (I shot the sheriff, but I did not shot no Montagny) said:
It hurt too
November 6th, 2008 at 21:38 #30 - me said:
if you haven’t already seen the brazil highlights:
http://www.formula1.com/services/play_video.html
in a word… stunning!
November 6th, 2008 at 21:39 #31 - R.G (I shot the sheriff, but I did not shot no Montagny) said:
I think I may have watched that race
About 30 trillion times
November 6th, 2008 at 21:41 #32 - me said:
honestly. there’s footage you may not have seen.
November 6th, 2008 at 21:49 #33 - R.G (I shot the sheriff, but I did not shot no Montagny) said:
Seemed quite harsh on Massa at the end for the FIA showing footage of the ‘wrong’ celebration.
coming from the FIA especially.
November 6th, 2008 at 21:50 #34 - Bassano Clappper said:
What’s that in Kijillions?
November 6th, 2008 at 21:51 #35 - me said:
very.
but the shot of the mechanic lashing out was important.
November 6th, 2008 at 21:52 #36 - R.G (I shot the sheriff, but I did not shot no Montagny) said:
He managed to silence everyone with that
November 6th, 2008 at 21:54 #37 - R.G (I shot the sheriff, but I did not shot no Montagny) said:
Most likely, or megajillions.
November 6th, 2008 at 21:55 #38 - Bassano Clappper said:
November 6th, 2008 at 21:58 #39 - Scott Woodwiss (HAMILTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON! XD) said:
FAN-TASTIC! Great choice of music as well – “Knights of Cydonia” by Muse. Fitted the circumstances perfectly
November 6th, 2008 at 21:58 #40 - Bassano Clappper said:
Slow to load, been (dare I say it) buffering for a few minutes now
November 6th, 2008 at 21:59 #41 - Bassano Clappper said:
Maybe my connection is running on fumes, pesky V Media and their download capping
November 6th, 2008 at 22:00 #42 - R.G (I shot the sheriff, but I did not shot no Montagny) said:
Buffering is like a swear word over here
November 6th, 2008 at 22:01 #43 - Bassano Clappper said:
“If Honda don’t pull their socks up next year I’m going to march up to Ross Brawn and give him a buffering piece of my mind”
November 6th, 2008 at 22:02 #44 - Bassano Clappper said:
“What the buffering hell was that stop and go for?”
November 6th, 2008 at 22:04 #45 - Bassano Clappper said:
I like how you can manually slow down the film speed – nice touch
November 6th, 2008 at 22:07 #46 - Scott Woodwiss (HAMILTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON! XD) said:
I can’t stop watching it now, best video edit of the year
November 6th, 2008 at 22:07 #47 - me said:
we need that for f1 minute, so that listeners in japan can understand christine (we get complaints).
mind you, then it would be more like f3 minute(s).
November 6th, 2008 at 22:08 #48 - me said:
they’ve set a high bar for their dvd.
November 6th, 2008 at 22:09 #49 - Bassano Clappper said:
Bet that left a mark!
November 6th, 2008 at 22:11 #50 - Dom said:
Blimey. They didn’t show that before…
November 6th, 2008 at 22:11 #51 - lou said:
omg that is brilliant!
the bit in the ferrari garage is heartbreaking though. very very good vid though. has put me in such a good mood. 
November 6th, 2008 at 22:12 #52 - Scott Woodwiss (HAMILTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON! XD) said:
Well they normally set parts of every race to music in the DVD anyway, but I doubt any of them could match that!
November 6th, 2008 at 22:13 #53 - lou said:
i know what you mean…. i am gonna have to download the song too…. it’s now in my head.
November 6th, 2008 at 22:16 #54 - lou said:
am gonna need to buy that…. i don’t normally, but after this season i think it’s a must.
November 6th, 2008 at 22:18 #55 - Dom said:
Absolutely.
November 6th, 2008 at 22:20 #56 - lou said:
i lolled at the fact they used a pussycat dolls song at the end
November 6th, 2008 at 22:21 #57 - Bassano Clappper said:
I’m thinking the same if they have gems like that on it
Love the look on brother Nic’s face as he shakes his head near the end
(*cough*, must find way to *cough* drop.io)
November 6th, 2008 at 22:22 #58 - Le Wombat du BOL said:
Expressed my support by voting.
By the way, I wanted to raise this very interesting question: how important are mobile phone F1 games are for you all? I mean I can’t live without them, I hate actual games and simulators because they turn people into maniacs but when I’m at work and go to the toilet to answer the call of nature, the one that makes you spend more time in that little room with a big white vase mounted on the floor, I simly must play a game or two, maybe win a race in Germany or France. I was using this 2nd generation simple mobile and it was rather limited in terms of games, my favourite was 2007 McLaren game with Alonso and HAM as drivers, funny thing. Only I never managed to qualify on pole in Germany, must’ve been Ron’s wish to spoil the gamers’ party. Now I moved on to 3rd generation phone and got this fantastic Ferrari game with 8 race tracks (I think, can’t remember now) and beautiful graphics, 2 types of car: 2007 and classic 1950s Ferrari, 3 drivers: Massa, RAI and a mystery driver whose silhouette reminds me of Schu; 3 modes: amateur, pro and expert, cockpit view, pit stops with mechanics actually doing stuff they do during the races, man, it’s heaven, I spend like 1 hour every time I visit WC, I simply must win on all tracks otherwise my stomach gives me hard time afterwards. The only problem is that all 22 cars on the grid are Ferraris, with fictitious drivers’ names like Kowka, Tilzi or Daretto.
November 6th, 2008 at 22:23 #59 - Scott Woodwiss (HAMILTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON! XD) said:
Don’t worry BOL – there’s a new official F1 game coming next year from Codemasters
November 6th, 2008 at 22:25 #60 - Bassano Clappper said:
I’m guessing you play with mute on
November 6th, 2008 at 22:37 #61 - Bassano Clappper said:
Just watched their Spa highlights and is pretty good too with an appropriate ending
November 6th, 2008 at 22:38 #62 - Steven Roy said:
I have never played a racing game on my phone. I rarely play any games on my phone. When I have it has been golf or Sony Ericsson’s fish photographing diving game which is as ridiculous as it sounds but is somewhat addictive
November 6th, 2008 at 22:40 #63 - Bassano Clappper said:
I always liked Mini Golf on the SEs
Their was a phone Virtua Racing that was about a sophisticated as Outrun
November 6th, 2008 at 22:41 #64 - Le Wombat du BOL said:
Yeah, I turn the music off, I also forgot to mention there’s an engineer coming up on screen to give you notes like “try to stay on track” or “slow down before turns to avoid skidding” or “tyres are worn out, go to the pit stop”. My favourite is the reminder about braking.
November 6th, 2008 at 22:44 #65 - Le Wombat du BOL said:
Yeah, I had this wild crazy-shaped Nokia in 2004 and I was playing Carlos Sainz rally, amazing game, fantastic, graphics were simply stone age but the car was jumping all the time and this thing was vibrating like hell, it left me drooling.
November 6th, 2008 at 22:46 #66 - Bassano Clappper said:
Watching the Monaco vid (which includes the fashion show) I now know why they (Max?) added the slowmo feature
November 6th, 2008 at 22:59 #67 - Steven Roy said:
We have a bigger grid than Bernie. We are up to 22 votes/nominations
November 6th, 2008 at 23:01 #68 - Steven Roy said:
We have 22 everyone else put together has 6. I think we are winning.
November 6th, 2008 at 23:02 #69 - Bassano Clappper said:
The Aguri made it back, YAY!
November 6th, 2008 at 23:07 #70 - Bassano Clappper said:
Am currently drop.io’ing a pic of Pharell Williams shoehorned into a MacLaren from Silverstone – priceless. Knees above the steering wheel
November 6th, 2008 at 23:14 #71 - Alex Andronov said:
Um. No. It’s always difficult getting away during the season I find. Even if you can get somewhere where the race is showing it is harder on Katherine. I mean it’s okay me watching the race while we’re at home. But when we’re on holiday… That has been a problem.
November 6th, 2008 at 23:29 #72 - me said:
that’s crazy!
understood
November 7th, 2008 at 00:53 #73 - Jordan Allen (This is your leader speaking (Always wanted to say that!) said:
Speaking about F1 interrupting people’s holiday vacations me, has my victory speech arrived?
November 7th, 2008 at 01:21 #74 - Steven Roy said:
We now have 27 votes now.
November 7th, 2008 at 01:23 #75 - Scott Woodwiss (HAMILTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON! XD) said:
i know it doesn’t come down to how many votes we have, but if it did, we’d have this award sewn up and on its way already
November 7th, 2008 at 01:24 #76 - Scott Woodwiss (HAMILTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON! XD) said:
Wouldn’t happen to have been called the N-Gage would it?
November 7th, 2008 at 09:02 #77 - Le Wombat du BOL said:
No, it was a bit like n-gage but smaller and was not meant to be a phone for games (it was all about music and recording sounds, can’t remember the model nº) but it had the technology to support some stuff which at the time was cutting edge. I gave up on Nokia a long time ago, they all function for a couple of months and then it’s slow, painful agony and death within a year, I’m a Samsung and Sharp man these days, although my 3G is vodafone 720 produced by chinese folks at huawei but I can tell ya it may be chinese but it rocks, the coolest phone I ever had and at 45 euros (memory card included) it’s the cheapest 3G on the market. So big thank you to Chinese people, you light up my life. But your Grand Prix really sucks, boring track and dull races, I think 2006 was OK but this year – what a drag! Come on, China, you can do better than that, how about racing on the great wall?
November 7th, 2008 at 09:38 #78 - RubberGoat (Gavin Brown) said:
Hey Christine, Di Grassi is going to test for Honda:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/72025
Who do you guys think will be Honda drivers next year? I am going to go out on a limb and pick Di Grassi and Senna
November 7th, 2008 at 10:03 #79 - me said:
it certainly has, thank you very much
November 7th, 2008 at 10:04 #80 - me said:
that sounds like a red bull pr stunt in the making.
November 7th, 2008 at 10:22 #81 - Christine said:
So I see. Is he any good though?
November 7th, 2008 at 10:43 #82 - Stuart C said:
I’ve voted. Up to 32 now.
November 7th, 2008 at 11:03 #83 - me said:
like you care what kind of driver he is
cheers.
there’s now such a massive gap to the next site (currently 2 votes), i’m wondering if we haven’t misread the rules?
November 7th, 2008 at 11:07 #84 - Christine said:
No, I don’t really. He’s the only one of my supposed crushes that is purely based on how good looking he is.
I am curious though, cos Renault chose Piquet over him, which I can’t imagine is too much of an ego-boost.
November 7th, 2008 at 11:30 #85 - me said:
isn’t keeping piquet mostly to do with sponsorship? mind you getting snubbed for piquet is rather depressing.
still, doesn’t seem to have affected koval…. oh.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:30 #86 - Christine said:
Also vote for Ollie on Best UK Blog:
http://2008.weblogawards.org/nominations/best-uk-blog/
November 7th, 2008 at 12:31 #87 - me said:
done
November 7th, 2008 at 14:18 #88 - Bassano Clappper said:
I think the idea is to propose a nomination so it can be considered. With such support in the early stages that should at least check the place out and see what the deal is
If and when we get a firm nomination then we can roll out the BIG support campaign
November 7th, 2008 at 14:35 #89 - Jordan Allen (Carrying the Number 1 in the Sidepodcast League!) said:
Wow! So my Baldrickian “Cunning Plan” a la “Blackadder Goes Forth” actually worked? I ripped the audio from a *.mpeg file after using a converting software program.
So how was it? I hope I was not a little “Over The Top” but today dives are coming up so…..
See ya.
November 7th, 2008 at 14:43 #90 - me said:
so you’re volunteering to relinquish mr .roy of his pr duties in order that he may concentrate on being the number one driver?
am currently positioned in front on the machine with no speakers. i briefly checked that it player earlier, but haven’t listened to all as yet.
i’ve no doubt that it’s perfect though
November 7th, 2008 at 17:46 #91 - BlogF1 Shamelessly Self-Promotes In 2008 Weblog Awards » BlogF1 said:
[...]Following Sidepodcast’s nomination by Bassano Clapper in the 2008 Weblog Awards, I decided to nominate my own site.[...]
November 7th, 2008 at 19:35 #92 - lou said:
I’m hoping it’s the same, Jenson and Rubens. Jenson appears to want Rubens to stay too – http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/72035
Something else interesting in that article –
Tis only good news
November 7th, 2008 at 21:09 #93 - me said:
f1 minute nominated in the podcast category:
http://2008.weblogawards.org/nominations/best-podcast/index.php#comment-13524
November 7th, 2008 at 21:12 #94 - Ollie said:
Voted all round. I think I might be getting hooked on this voting malarkey.
November 8th, 2008 at 00:35 #95 - Steven Roy said:
Voted for Ollie and F1 Minute.
November 8th, 2008 at 01:13 #96 - lou said:
same here.
November 8th, 2008 at 01:19 #97 - me said:
cheers
November 8th, 2008 at 01:34 #98 - Ollie said:
Thanks Steven and Lou. Like I said on Identi.ca and in my site-comments, we’ll take over the Internet, eventually.
November 8th, 2008 at 22:00 #99 - Steven Roy said:
Sidepodcast now has 50 votes. None of the other online communities can beat 2.
November 9th, 2008 at 16:32 #100 - Steven Roy said:
I am starting to panic now. Someone else has 4 votes
November 9th, 2008 at 16:45 #101 - R.G (I am a PC and this is my comment) said:
We’re doomed, doomed.
January 6th, 2009 at 04:12 #102 - How Deep Is Your Love? | Sidepodcast : Your Weekly F1 Podcast said:
[...] mentioned back in November last year that we were after preliminary votes for Best Online Community in the 2008 Weblog Awards, because [...]
January 17th, 2009 at 18:44 #103 - 2008 Weblog Awards Wrap Up | Sidepodcast : Your Weekly F1 Podcast said:
[...] on from the initial nominations and then the finalist voting, the 2008 Weblog Awards closed this week. The votes have been tallied [...]