Saturday, July 24, 2010

Top of the Heap

I received the news yesterday that an organization called AwardingTheWeb, in concert with Online Ph.D. Programs, has named The Rap Sheet as one of this year’s Top 45 Mystery Book Blogs. The full list of winners--which includes many of the sites featured in our own blogroll (plus several that seem to have slipped under our radar until now)--can be found and critiqued here.

As AwardingTheWeb explains,
This award highlights the very best blogs about mystery books on the Internet as selected by our judges, and is designed to thank the authors for their contribution toward the World Wide Web we all use and enjoy.

Awards candidates are selected using two methods:
-- Audience nominations
-- Our team of research associates scouring the Web

After a list of candidates is compiled they are each scored by our panel of 5 judges. Each judge rates each blog across 20 different attributes providing it with a ‘subjective’ score. These ratings are combined into an aggregate, and the aggregates of the 5 judges are averaged to give the blog its final rating.

The ratings are then compared, and awards are given out to blogs in the 99% percentile (meaning the top 1% of blogs receive awards).
We certainly appreciate the recognition.

8 comments:

David said...

Hey, I'm a regular Rap Sheet reader, so that's why I have to tell you - these awards are a bit of scam. See the post on my blog http://theendlessfurther.com/?p=1263

One person I know tried to get them to email him the 20 attributes but they wouldn't do it.

Bernadette said...

Um I'm with David on this one, it's a linking kind of scam. You'll note that you're supposed to link to them but they don't link to anyone. And if you don't put up a badge and link you get a nasty email. They represent the smellier end of the 'net IMHO

J. Kingston Pierce said...

It's a damn shame that people can't give out awards simply from the goodness of their heart anymore.

Cheers,
Jeff

Janet Rudolph said...

Still nice to be recognized. You would have had my vote.

I must have received a notice, too, since Mystery Fanfare was on the list. I deleted it, probably because of the Get Your PhD online tag. I have a PhD, but had to work for it. Online would have been so much easier.

Naomi Johnson said...

It's a shame, because Rap Sheet deserves awards. This is a regular reading spot for me.

Barbara said...

Awards may be scams, but in my book The Rap Sheet is a great blog and I follow it every single day. Does that count?

Jeremy Drummond said...

As a mystery writer myself, scam or not, this blog still deserves an award.

Leighton Gage said...

We got one, too, for Murder IS Everywhere.
And Yrsa changed the code, so we're not doing free advertising for the sponsor when we use the badge.
And since, when you click on it, you're brought to some find blogs, we figured it was worth using.