9rules and Avalonstar Win at SXSWi

Congrats 9rules!

Thats great, although im not surprised at all!

LOL, Now was Scriv's actually sick or just hung over. Spill the beans Colin D. Devroe! :)

Again, congrats on the "Best Community Site" award, you guys deserved it.

Yikes Paul's sickness sounds pretty serious.. I read a bit about the night over on Usability Works.

Yeah Paul actually was pretty sick, and not due to partying or alcohol at all (even though I joked about that during the acceptance speech just so people wouldn't freak out) but he's doing a lot better now.

Good job guys.

Great for 9rules, but Avalonstar is a far cry from best designed website. I do not know Bryan Veloso, but what I do know is that images and text intend past the center column, the text choices are all over the place and the default font is rather tiny, the header and footer sometimes randomly disappear depending where you are at in the site, although he uses lots of nifty column(s) they are never consistent (2 column here, 3 column there, back to 1 column, maybe 4 column here), the drop shadow is off, ...etc.

If this is the best designed web blog they can come up with SXSW should get on the Internet more. Maybe the solution would be to look past blogs that their buddies at Media Temple host or even that are 9 rules members. SXSW is great, and there is all this talk how it is bigger and better yet it seems like it's always the same camp of people and companies.

I wouldn't be deserving of judging anyone (although I came off that way with my previous comment). 9rules does deserve the recognition, I applaud them, I suppose who and how they choose the contenders is what is comes down to. I will agree that Bryan's blog is a stand out compared to some of the others.

9drama's. Sounds like one hell of a night. Hope Paul is feeling better...

Let me be the first to clear up that it wasn't the "best designed blog" at all. It was the "best blog" competition.

The SXSW Web Awards are judged in two separate rounds. After all entries are received, the first round of judging selects a group of five finalists in each of the categories. The second round of judging picks the top site from each of these groups of finalists.

Websites are judged on the following five criteria: visual design, functionality, interactivity, content and creativity. Entries are given a score of between 1 and 10 in each of these criteria and the finalist sites are those that achieve the highest cumulative score.

As the panel of judges are comprised of individuals from around the country and across the world, all judging is accomplished via a special, online interface.

So as you can see, it was more than just design. I respect your opinion killputer, but if you have lingering issues with Avalonstar, please contact me in person. Thanks.