Best of 604: Winners and The Morning After
byI’m piling through the photos on Flickr of all the fantastic people that showed up last night for the Best of 604 awards reception. Some may think it’s a silly idea to have an awards night for bloggers and websites, but I think that (especially in this town) so much effort, passion, care, humour, and personality goes into creating such great content that everyone deserved a night out regardless.
I’m so thankful that so many people were able to come out – bloggers, media, friends, family, and many people that I have known in the online realm for years and just last night had the chance to meet. The fact that they all assembled to chat, eat, drink, and celebrate their own work, as well as others makes me so proud to be a part of this city.
The most important element of the evening was the cause and together we raised $1,845 for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society.
To say that I’m touched by the efforts of so many is an understatement. I want to thank everyone that attended, those who voted, and every single person that has inspired me to keep doing all of this day in and day out – whether they are aware of it or not.
According to the overwhelming positive response I’m pretty sure I’m on the hook to make this an annual event so keep your eyes peeled in later November 2009 for the Best of 604 (and 778) to make a return.
I’d like to give a shout out to the wonderful ladies who ran the door last night and were so incredibly helpful, Rosemary, Marina, and Kate. Thanks to Jenny and Keira for being my lovely prize assistants, and to John for the music – I’m SO glad I got to hear some International Noise Conspiracy.
Please check out the Best of 604 site for all the sponsor links, they really came through with some super prizes and if you enjoyed the venue like I did, consider heading back to The Cellar for a good time.
Below is a list of of results from the voting in each of the 14 categories. Some of the winners were not in attendance so I’ll try to touch base with them regarding their prizes.
Best site for Sports:
1. BC Soccer Web 35% *
2. Canucks Hockey Blog 35%
3. Outdoor Vancouver 15%
Best Podcast (audio or video):
1. Lipgloss and Laptops 35%
2. Choogle On 14%
3. TikiBar TV 11%
Best site for Events:
1. Beyond Robson 40%
2. From Blown Speakers 19%
3. Vancity Buzz 13%
Best Multi-Author site:
1. The Tyee 23%
2. Beyond Robson 16%
3. Vancouver is Awesome 15%
Best New Blog of 2008:
1. Modern Mix Vancouver 31%
2. 3 Degrees West 12%
3.Tiny Bites 9%
Best site for Tech:
1. Buzz Networker 21%
2. Techvibes 18%
3. iPhone in Canada 16%
Best site for News:
1. The Tyee 23%
2. CBC 21%
3.News 1130 16%
Best site for Politics:
1. The Tyee 35%
2. Matthew Good 22%
3. Jonathon Narvey 18%
Best site for Humor:
1. The Province Live @ 5 24% *
2. CondoHype 17%
3. Your Dose of Lunacy 13%
Best Company blog:
1. Raincity Studios 18%
2. BuildDirect 17%
3. 3 Degrees West 10%
Best site for Food (directory or blog):
1. The Well-Tempered Chocolatier 14% *
2. Farmstead Wines 11%
3. Chow Times 10%
Best site for Photos:
1. Waxy Photography 16% *
2. Marc L’Esperance 13%
3. Blue Olive Photography 11%
Best site for Fashion or Style:
1. Demicouture 24%
2. The Style Spy 20%
3. The Conveyor Belt 17%
Best Personal site:
1. John Chow 46%
2. Gus Greeper 7%
3. Delicious Juice 6%
*Prizes have yet to be collected.
I had no idea this would have such a response and grow to become what it has (with over 6,000 votes to boot!) I’m looking forward to next year; to watching all of these great sites grow, discovering new sites, and celebrating the hard work of each one of these content producers.
Photos from the evening can be found tagged as “Bestof604” on Flickr, such as Raul’s great collection, and Tawcan has some up on his site as well.
There are some badges on my Flickr although you may even want to make your own, please feel free.
Update: Ianiv streamed the entire awards presentation with Qik, you can check it out here.
67 Comments — Comments Are Closed
Thanks Rebecca for hosting and putting it all together! Was a fun night.. so how many votes did I get 😉 lol 1%, 2%?
Hey Rebecca,
Great evening last night, and the link love. It was a soaring success!
Victoria
Great times last night.
Great job last night Rebecca. I had a blast and it seemed like everyone else was as well. You’ll definitely have to make this an annual event!
Was it choogle on or gravelly beach in 2nd place on podcast behind the L&L powerhouse?good to see Narvey in a solid third place and whoa John Chow with huuuuge numbers – imagine if he added content to go along with the ads 🙂 great event, awesome peeps and I’m in for next year!
Uncle weed out from the high seas
It was a fantastic event and yes, you are on the hook for next year. One of the things that made it a really special night is that so many so-called blogger get-togethers are really for developers instead. This was all about the bloggers themselves, front and centre and being recognized thanks to you.
You did a great thing.
Was an awesome event, thanks Rebecca. Great to also meet a whole stack of awesome people!
@ Dave my bad! Gravelly was up there with 4% – but Choogle On was the runner up. Just transferred the data for this post manually from the poll site.
Awesome, awesome job! Can’t wait for next year! Red carpet all the way!
Thanks Rebecca. I had a great time. And I was happy to introduce myself to you finally. I’ve seen you at other events, but never spoke to you until last night when I won my prize. Yay!
What fun! Thanks for organizing, Rebecca. It was a great event. Looking forward to next year.
Thanks for organizing such a wonderful event! 🙂
Awesome, I wish I could have made it to the event! Looking forward to next year’s show. Keep up the great work Rebecca.
[…] night at a ceremony the Cellar nightclub downtown, Lip Gloss and Laptops won in the favourite audio/video podcast category at Vancouver’s Best of 604 awards, which were voted for by readers and listeners […]
What a great energy in the room last night! I’m honoured to have won, but even more stoked about having such a great community of bloggers and podcasters here in Vancouver.
Great time last night!
I was so impressed to know you pulled it all together in 3 weeks. You’re a star! I think you’re right, you’re going to have to make it an annual event. I’m looking forward to checking out all these great sites now too.
Amazing effort to put this all together. Congrats and thanks to you Rebecca and best to all the winners, second runners up and all who took part in Best of 604.
Rebecca, I don’t have the words to say Thank You enough. What a wonderful evening. And thanks to everyone who came (and those who even though couldn’t come, wishes us success)
[…] the long-running podcast from Derek’s wife Air and her co-host KA, won in the inaugural favourite audio/video podcast category at Vancouver’s Best of 604 blog and podcast awards, which were voted for by readers […]
Fantastic night last night & such a great turnout
Thanks for putting this together!
Wooo 16%!
Awesome news!! It was a squeaker in the photography category and I’m happy to my friend Marc right there with me.
I anxiously scrolled through the pics on Flickr last night watching the fun. I wish I could have been there. The pics are great and it looked like a lot of fun.
Thanks for doing this, Rebecca. It’s so positive in many respects.
Til next year!
Excellent event and a fun time! That must have been so much work to put together. I’m amazed and impressed.
I’m adding all the nominees and winners to the “Vancouver Base” at http://vancouver.freebase.com/ (there are a lot of them). When I’m done, they’ll all show up in my new Vancouver-only search engine at http://vansearch.ca/ . I can’t think of a better list of websites to get started with. Thanks! 🙂
Thanks for putting this together, and sorry I couldn’t attend. But I’ll be happy dancing all weekend!
So much fun! You worked hard and pull off a phenomenal evening that so many of us greatly appreciated! It’s always good to just get out and kick up one’s heels 😉
That was so much fun! Great to see that Vancouver has such a vibrant blog scene! Thanks for organizing the event!
[…] Comments Thanks to all you lovelies, The Well-Tempered Chocolatier was voted Best Food Site in the Best of 604 Awards last […]
Thanks a lot to everyone who helped put this event together – your efforts were and are very much appreciated. There are so many people here in Vancouver who you can’t help but admire, and a good many of them were in attendance last night. It’s an exciting time to be involved in social media and blogging, knowing that there are so many likeminded people out there in our community doing such great work.
We were really touched to be nominated in our category, and even more to get a runner-up prize. For me, it was a nice little pay off for a year’s effort in reaching out to our audience through our blogs. Here;s to another year of learning new things and helping to build a community that makes life in Vancouver that much better.
Good times!
Cheers!
Rebecca,
Thank you for putting on an amazing event to showcase the blogging talent of Vancouver. It was so nice to meet the people behind the local webs. Congratulations on a rocking reception; we had a blast and it helped the Food Bank to boot!
Karen
PS: I know everyone took photos of attendees but as per my habit, I took photos of the food =) Will tag accordingly!
Damn! I was aiming to get over 50% of all the votes. Oh well. 🙂 Thanks for a great time Rebecca.
@daveo – I guess averaging 2.8 posts per day, everyday, since December 2005 doesn’t count as content, huh? Anytime you want to have a content competition, you let me know.
A great idea that turned into a wonderful evening, thank you so much Rebecca.
It was great to meet so many bloggers – a definite “best of” gathering. And reading through the results list, I have several great blogs to add to my feed reader.
Can’t see any way out of you organizing this again next year 🙂
Awesome event! Thanks so much for doing all that!
I am very excited about being in 3rd place for my humor blog (which either means I have low expectations or that it’s really cool – can’t figure out which 🙂
[…] (Dec. 12, 2008): It came in at 3rd place! Considering my competition of hilarious peeps, that’s a very flattering position to be […]
Wow! What an honor! Thank you so much for organizing this, Rebecca. Sorry we couldn’t attend, my wife Katie (who manages VancouverIsAwesome.com with me) is expecting a baby… like today! So we’ve been sticking close to home for obvious reasons.
Is third place considered a “runner up”? We’d love to post the award image in our sidebar and link back. And of course next year we’d love to come out to the event… if we’re not expecting a child the day of the awards!
[…] The lovely Miss604/Rebecca in just three weeks threw together nominations, votes and an awesome awards night to wrap it all up…all to celebrate the local bloggers with her Best of 604 Awards. […]
So much fun! Thank you for putting the contest together. You are a social media-blogging genius. And thanks to all for the kind words on my blog’s final results as well. Cheers.
Many thanks Rebecca for organizing this celebration of not only the best or favourite but of all. You are right, everyone is talking about next year.
a big thanks to the contest organizers, and to all the participants, and especially to the people who supported my nomination with their votes!
i’m proud of taking the runner-up win, and very happy for my good friend John who nabbed first place!
[…] out the winners of the other categories and photos of the awards ceremony here. No […]
[…] I had no doubt that I would win the Best Personal Blog of Vancouver. Given the size of my readership vs. the competition, it wasn’t even close. My goal wasn’t to win the award itself. My goal was to get more votes than the entire field combined. I came up short, with 46% of all the votes. Gus Greeper was runner up with 7% of the votes. You can see the full list of award winner at Miss604.com. […]
[…] The winners from last night were the cream of the crop, but honestly the big winners are all of us. […]
[…] here for the event detail. The winners for the best food-related site […]
[…] when I won the Best Tech Site category, over the assumed winner, Techvibes. Buzznetworker pulled in 21% of the overall votes for the category, which is fantastic and totally […]
Hey Rebecca, congrats for creating an amazing night. We at The Tyee are so appreciative of the good will that came our way from the online community. I was happy to be able to put faces to all the great bloggers in our part of the world. Great event, great scene, great for democracy!
Whoa! Thanks for holding his Rebecca and organizing everything! Even though I didn’t make it to the awards night it looks like everyone had a blast. Thanks Vancouver for voting my iPhone blog as the #3 Tech Site in Vancouver! 🙂
Thanks for taking what was formerly a solo blog post and turning it into a spectacular community event. Wow! With the 604 catalyst Vancouver put the social in social media. Hope you get a chance to relax and bask in the goodness this weekend. And many thanks to the sponsors, too.
[…] I had no doubt that I would win the Best Personal Blog of Vancouver. Given the size of my readership vs. the competition, it wasn’t even close. My goal wasn’t to win the award itself. My goal was to get more votes than the entire field combined. I came up short, with 46% of all the votes. Gus Greeper was runner up with 7% of the votes. You can see the full list of award winner at Miss604.com. […]
To follow Rebecca’s good heart and success of raising 1,845 for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society, I’ve decided to celebrate my win in the photo category by launching a print charity.
Waxy Photography will give $10 to BC Children’s Hospital Foundation for each print sold between now and December 31, 2008. These are the same archival fine art prints that I exhibit in galleries.
More details here:
http://waxyphotography.com/2008/12/waxy-photography-voted-1-photo-site-in.html
What a great event! One of the highlights of the year for the blogging community, and yes, it is without a doubt a real community. A special congrats to all of the nominees, too. This puts to rest the fallacy that bloggers just live out their lives behind their computer monitors and don’t meet face to face.
Thanks for putting together such a fun celebration that brought together many friends that I hadn’t seen in months and really kicked off the holidays. That it also raised a healthy sum for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank also kept it perfectly in the spirit of the season.
[…] and I had a wonderful time Thursday night at the Best of 604 Awards reception. Rebecca (Miss 604) did an absolutely amazing job of organizing the event in just 3 […]
[…] Thursday night’s Best of 604 awards it was revealed that the people’s choice for Best Photo Site in Metro Vancouver for 2008 was […]
[…] week I was so honoured to win a “Best of 604” award with my friend Kerry Anne. You may know that we produce a podcast […]
[…] and family to celebrate the Metro Vancouver Web Awards. Hosted by Rebecca Bollwit (also known as Miss 604), this sold-out event was a multitude of reasons to celebrate – an awards reception, a holiday […]
Congrats on a fantastic evening and giving us the opportunity to introduce pantybypost.com by providing the lucky winner in the fashion department with a sultry six month subscription!
Wishing you continued success.
Lori for pantybypost.com
In my opinion, the contest is better described as “604 Websites with Most Friends”. I checked a few of the categories and found that a number of times, the number 3 winner is a lot better than the number 1 winner.
@ Jonnek – The nomination process lasts about a week and then we have a vote. Any member of the public is welcome to nominate a site, and also vote on a site – I actually prefer this method for a contest like this versus having a panel chose winners, which is why I called it the ‘people’s choice’. Please check back next year and feel free to nominate and vote for your favourites.
[…] week’s Best of 604 Awards, a celebration and awards ceremony that brought out many of the local blogging community, confirmed […]
[…] a while back when I posted about how my site was nominated for the Bestof604.com’s Best Site for Tech category? Well, turns out the people have spoken and we came in 3rd place in the […]
[…] on today’s show, and personal updates: Dave turns 40, and IHR doesn’t win the Best of 604 award, but Derek’s wife’s podcast Lip Gloss and Laptops […]
[…] The point of social media is to connect, communicate, and build discussions. If events like this are the result of social media powers in Vancouver, I couldn’t be more excited to be a part of such a community (and more excited to celebrate it). […]
[…] 30, 2008 · No Comments As part of my win for Best of 604, IÂ got a bunch of sponsored swag. I like swag. My particular category, best food site, was […]
[…] Currents wins a runner-up award for Best Politics Site or Blog from Miss604’s Best of 604 Awards after a hard, bare-knuckles blogging campaign. A cold winter snap descends on Vancouver. Meanwhile, […]
[…] January 27th, I will be joined by a group of top-notch bloggers at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre: Best of 604 Awards nominees, Kimli, Tanya and Ami from Beyond […]
Looked like a great event. Can’t wait til the next one.
[…] experts and their sites, to highlight just a few. Maybe I should duck behind the cover of the “Best of 604” results for 2008. This was a contest which Miss 604 organised in 2008 and 2007 (but apparently not 2009), […]
[…] I’m not sure why anyone would think they are “banned”, I’m not even sure in what context. I have a complete list of winners available here, listing all 1st, 2nd and 3rd place bloggers: http://www.miss604.com/2008/12/best-of-604-winners-and-the-morning-after.html […]
it was great event! can’t wait for the next one… 🙂