The BOBs – Best of the Blogs
June 11, 2008![](https://static.dw.com/image/2139379_800.webp)
With more than two-thirds of the world’s population living in countries with limited freedom of the press, blogging has become the preferred media for free speech. Along with an annual, international blogging competition, www.thebobs.com offers a Blogopedia and a Blogmap – the perfect way to search for blogs around the world.
The Best of the Blogs (BOBs)
The BOBs is the world’s largest international blogging competition – drawing in more than 7,000 nominations per year. It was developed in 2004 and now has 16 categories, with winners being chosen by both an international jury of media experts and bloggers and through online voting. Judges look at blogs in 11 different languages – making the BOBs the world‘s only awards competition that offers a comprehensive overview of the global blogosphere. The annual awards ceremony usually takes place in November in Berlin.
Deutsche Welle‘s goal in hosting the awards is to reach out to talented bloggers, podcasters and video bloggers to promote free speech on the Internet, expand the diversity of the global blogosphere and encourage a multilingual dialogue.
Blogopedia
Whether you are doing research, looking for blogs to meet your interests or just trying to explore different topics – the Blogopedia is a good place to start. The Blogopedia is an online catalog featuring a growing inventory of blogs written in ten languages. It allows you to browse by country, language or subject matter. To date, more than 3,000 different blogs, podcasts and video blogs have been entered into the Blogopedia by users and bloggers from all over the world.
Blogmap
Interested in finding out what’s happening in different corners of the world? Or just want to find out what’s close to you? The Blogmap provides you with an interactive map for the blogosphere. Just click on the map to get a closer look at who is writing what and where.