The awards will honor nonprofits in four categories: Best Small Organization, Best Medium Organization, Best Large Organization, and Best Storytelling Video. The winner of each category will be awarded several prizes, such as monetary compensation as well as a featured spot on YouTube’s homepage on April 5th. See YouTube’s video about this year’s contest for more information:

This is the 6th year for the DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards and the third year that YouTube has partnered with See3 Communcations in order to present the event. The window to submit is only this month – as in, February 2012 – and all videos must be submitted by the 29th of this month (good thing it’s a leap year so you have an extra day to get those videos in). In order to submit, though, you are required to be a member of YouTube’s Nonprofit Program. The winning videos for each category will be selected via public vote between March 14 and March 28 and the winners will be announced April 5.

If you’re new to the world of nonprofit video or you’re a nonprofit looking for a little inspiration, check out last year’s award winners:

Now they, have something else to brag about – a Crunchie award.

The Crunchies are Tech Crunch’s annual tech awards, and this year Google+ bested Instagram to win the waard for “Best Social Application.”

Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra was pretty happy about the recognition, as he had this to say in a Google+ post: “Wow. Last year no one would have believed we could be nominated. Tonight we won. Wait until you see what’s next. Thank you all.”

The Crunchies, which have been going on for five years now, award the best apps, startups, founders, and investors. Other winners include Dropbox for year’s best startup and Jack Dorsey (Square) for best founder of the year.

Sometimes, when the Grammys want to honor someone who was working behind the scenes of music production, they’ll award them a Trustees Award. For those not in the know, the Recording Academy describes the Trustee Award as a prize reserved for “individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording.” Careers in music. Producers, studio musicians, these are people I think of when I contemplate this award. Good to recognize their contributions, I suppose. Adds some relevance to the Grammys. Gotcha.

Apparently uncomfortable with the Grammys’ currently sclerotic state, the Recording Academy will attempt to liven things up for the forth-coming awards show albeit poorly and confusingly. This year’s award ceremony, which is scheduled to come vomiting out of your TV screen on February 11, 2012, will blur the distinction of exactly what is considered “significant contributions to the field of recording” music because they’re posthumously awarding the Trustees Award to the Pope of Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs.

Wait, what?

From the Recording Academy’s press release:

As former CEO and co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs helped create products and technology that transformed the way we consume music, TV, movies, and books. A creative visionary, Jobs’ innovations such as the iPod and its counterpart, the online iTunes store, revolutionized the industry and how music was distributed and purchased. In 2002 Apple Computer Inc. was a recipient of a Technical GRAMMY Award for contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field. The company continues to lead the way with new technology and in-demand products such as the iPhone and iPad.

I’m still confused. So because he introduced a popular device that is used to listen to music or spoken word whatevers he gets a Grammy? Did Andreas Pavel, the man who gave us the Walkman, get a Grammy for his revolutionary contribution to making music portable? You get two seconds to guess. Time’s up. Answer: No.

Awarding a lukewarm Grammy to Steve Jobs is shameless and opportunistic. If they really wanted to give him an award with any meaning, the Recording Academy could’ve done this after everybody realized the iPod was a pretty big deal. Like, five or six years ago. They shouldn’t even be giving him an award at all, but that’s beside the point. But whatever – it’s the Grammys’ show and they’ll cry if they want to. However, since the Grammys are bending their rules for Saint Jobs to receive an award, maybe his iGrammy will look a little like this.

The Protester!

It’s not the first time that Time has given the title to someone other than a specific, proper person (that 2006 award to “You” as the Person of the Year still sticks in my craw), but of course this decision – as with just about any list you’re likely to find in this end-of-year times – at once ruffled some feathers and pleased many. Reactions on Twitter ranged from indignant to celebratory, some tongue-in-cheek (maybe?) self-congratulations, humorous, and disbelief that a certain recently deceased inventor was passed over for the award. Interesting, too, is that most people want to spell protester as “protestor” (myself included).

Here’s a sample of what you’ll find on Twitter today regarding the Person of the Year:

Honestly, the fact that so many people seem to think that the most important thing Steve Jobs did this year – dying! – positioned him to be honored as Person of the Year is an insult to the legacy of a man that those very same people have beatified since his death. Saint Jobs did a lot of innovative things and changed the way we communicate, sure, but the Person of the Year isn’t Time Magazine’s fancy way of eulogizing someone important. But anyways. What do you think? Agree or disagree with the choice? Comment below.

Last night’s Emmys were a mix of surprises and expected results as a few notable actors walked away with their first emmys and a couple of powerhouse shows maintained their place at the top.

The biggest surprise of the night might have been Friday Night Light‘s star Kyle Chandler winning the award for Outstanding Lead Actor for his role as Coach Taylor on the critically-acclaimed show. Peter Dinklage also grabbed an Emmy for his work on the HBO hit Game of Thrones.

The two shows that won the night’s big awards, Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Comedy Series have won the award for several years in a row. Both Mad Men and Modern Family winning the statues was no surprise to anyone. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart also won again for Variety, Musical or Comedy Series – making it 9 years in a row.

It was a huge night for Modern Family, as the show recorded wins for not only Outstanding Comedy Series, but for Supporting Actress (Julie Bowen), Supporting Actor (Ty Burrell), Directing (Michael Spiller) and Writing (Steve Levitan and Jeffrey Richman). Here are some reactions from the winners –

Not only were the stars of Friday Night Lights tweeting about Kyle Chandler’s victory, but other stars seemed pretty happy about the decision –

Here are some more reactions from the winners (and losers) –

Who got robbed? Who deserved their Emmy the most? Let us know what you think in the comments.

The Social Network was up for: Best Picture, Best Direction, Actor in a Leading Role, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Sound Mixing, and Music (Original Score). It won Best Adapted Screenplay, Film editing, and Music (Aaron Sorkin, Angus Wall/Kirk Baxter and Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross respectively).   

Last month, The Social Network won 4 Golden Globes for Best Director, Screenplay, Best Score, and Best Picture, Drama. It  had been nominated for 6.  Jesse Eisenberg, the actor who portrayed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, was nominated for the Best Actor, Drama award, but lost out to Colin Firth for his performance in the film, The King’s Speech. Andrew Garfield, who played Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but lost to Christian Bale for his performance in The Fighter. 

The film missed out on any wins at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, though Eisenberg was nominated for Outstanding Performance By A Male Actor In A Leading Role. 

At the Oscars, The King’s Speech won Best Picture, Tom Hooper won Best Director for that film, Colin Firth won Best actor for it, Wally Pfister won Best Cinematography for Inception, and Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick also won Sound Mixing for Inception. 

Read our review of The Social Network here.

There is a Nobel Prize YouTube channel set up, which streams announcements for each prize live in real-time. Of course once they have been announced, you can still go back and watch them. For example, here is a clip for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or medicine:

Also on the YouTube channel, there is a schedule for upcoming announcements. Still to come are announcements for Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Economic Sciences.

Users can also peruse a variety of clips from past years on the Nobel Prize YouTube channel. (Via  CitizenTube)

The nominees this year are highly controversial, because they are inspired or originated from Matt’s own reading list, and are the posts which he highlighted in his monthly roundup posts as being the most important for his clients and subscribers to read if they missed them.

As such, the Semmys represent a subset of the content that is created, but possibly that also allows Matt to highlight articles that were in some way ground-breaking or were the centre of the news more than useful howto articles which might present excellent content, but are not necessarily "must read". They are certainly going to be controversial…

Judging is broken down into 2 stages, with 25 judges being asked to come up with a short list of posts in their assigned categories. I am sure assigning judges was a hard task, because so many of the judges have their own articles nominated, and because of quite visible professional ties with other marketers.

The 25 Judges

• Aaron Wall
• Andrew Shotland
• Andy Beal
• Andy Beard
• Barry Schwartz
• Bill Slawski
• Brad Geddes
• Chris Winfield
• Christine Churchill
• David Mihm
• Deb Mastaler
• Eric Enge
• Jeff Quipp
• Jennifer Laycock
• John Andrews
• Lee Odden
• Lisa Barone
• Logoworks
• Loren Baker
• Matt McGee
• Michael Gray
• Rand Fishkin
• Simon Heseltine
• Stoney deGeyter
• Sugarrae
• Tamar Weinberg
• Todd Malicoat
• Vanessa Fox

The Articles I Had Nominated (yes 4 of them)

SEO Category
SEO Linking Gotchas Even The Pros Make

Google Category
Dancing With The Gevil – Defamed By Google?

Digg Favorites Slapped By Google

Blogs & Blogging

Optimizing HTML Links In The Aftermath Of A Blog Storm

For some reason none of my articles about Google and paid links were classed as rants, maybe I need to add some more attitude to those or keep them shorter.
In some ways that is a good thing, it has allowed me to be a judge for the Rant Category as well as SEO Tech

Take a look at those categories and let me know what you think – I will try not to let you sway my choices too much, but if you have a favorite, do let me know.

Comments

*Originally published at AndyBeard.eu

Now a panel of 20+ judges are tasked with reading or in most cases, re-reading the posts and picking 3 finalists for each category. Many of the judges have also had their blog posts included in the judging, so Matt has been careful about assignments to avoid conflict of interest issues.

The posts for the two categories (Social and Viral) I am judging include some really great content. When reading these posts, I decided to make things a little more interesting and take a look at some metrics besides the actual content including the inlinks reported by Yahoo Site Explorer, the number of comments and also whether the posts were submitted to: Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us or Sphinn.

Here are the posts for the “Social Media Marketing” category.

Here are the posts in the “Viral Marketing” category.

Keep in mind, this is not a “Best Post for all of Search Marketing 2007″ sort of thing. These posts come from Matt McGee’s personal interests and selections over the year. That said, Matt has pretty good taste and there are plenty of excellent resources in this list. I know it was very informative to review many of them causing me to take notes and send reminder emails to our team.

Once 3 finalists in each category are selected, then they will be posted to the SEMMY site Friday January 18th for open public voting to decide the winners.

The judges and the categories they’re picking finalists for include:

• Rae Hoffmann: Small Biz, Rep. Mgmt.
• Barry Schwartz: Local
• Tamar Weinberg: Blogs
• Christine Churchill: PPC
• Loren Baker: Viral, Rants
• Vanessa Fox: Metrics, LOL
• Jennifer Laycock: Online Mktg./General
• Lisa Baron: Google, Rep. Mgmt.
• Rand Fishkin: Google
• Bill Slawski: Links
• Todd Malicoat: Small Biz
• Andy Beal: SEO
• Stoney DeGeyter: Online Mktg./General
• Deb Mastaler: SEO
• Aaron Wall: PPC
• Lee Odden: Social, Viral
• John Andrews: Links
• Eric Enge: SEO, Tech
• Andrew Shotland: Small Biz
• Jeff Quipp: Social
• Simon Heseltine: Social
• Brad Geddes: Metrics, Local
• Chris Winfield: Google, LOL
• Andy Beard: Tech, Rants
• Michael Gray: Blogs

Comments