Social media, social web, marketing and Twitter hints, tips & advice – Liz Hover's Diary of a Web Gal

There was a little rejoicing in the Web Gal household yesterday.

One of my blogs, Hi, I’m Sadie Shih Tzu has been nominated for a Canadian Weblog Award (Life category).

The Canadian Weblog Awards promote blogs from across Canada year-round with interviews, articles, and the nomination, judging, and award process. A jury then decides on a short list and winners are announced in January 2011.

The awards are something of a breath of fresh air: they’re designed to uncover good, but perhaps not mainstream or popular blogs.

Much of the judging criteria focuses on common sense stuff that all web designers would apply when creating a website. The same stuff I use in my job as website manager.

Design

• Usability — Is the website user-friendly and easy to navigate?
• Operability — Do all of its components function properly?
• Interactivity — Are a comments section and author contact information available? Are its interactive components (including comments, audio, video, etc.) effective, appropriate, and accessible?
• Aesthetics — Is the website pleasing to look at? Is its design original?

• Originality — Is the content original and creatively expressed?
• Intelligibility and clarity — Is the content well-written? Are the content’s messages clearly and effectively delivered?
• Currency — Is the content timely? Is the weblog updated on a regular basis?
• Transparency and authenticity — Is the author’s purpose and realness both trusted and apparent?
• Attention to detail — Has the content been edited for spelling and grammatical errors? Is the content arranged for ease of consumption?
• Engagingness — Is the content interesting? Does it contain broad appeal within its genre?

So we’ll have to be patient for a few months before we find out if Sadie’s blog progresses any further.

This is truly an honour to be recognised among my fellow Canadian bloggers. I’ve never envisioned making money from Sadie’s blog. It’s only ever an online space for her personality to come alive for others. Pure entertainment. And with the deluge of blogs available it’s a wonder anyone ever found Sadie’s.

We’ve no idea who nominated Hi, I’m Sadie Shih Tzu. If it was you, thank you.

A local design company in Winnipeg sent these videos to us today as part of our Halloween treats.

One word: HILARIOUS.

(And strong language.)

I guess sometimes you do stuff and have no idea of its impact.

Case in point: the Winnipeg Folk Festival recently took place at Bird’s Hill Park, Manitoba. I’ve attended the festival for the last five years but this year stayed away to look after my pooch Sadie Shih Tzu who got spayed the first day of the festival.

The festival is significant to me because it’s where I first really fell in love with my man.

I’m at home sitting in front of my Mac Saturday night of the festival and John is at the festival.

As per usual I’m on Twitter when I spy a tweet from CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi who happens to be MC-ing the main stage that same night. Jian is asking for Folk Fest. stories to read out on the main stage so, assuming I’m one of many people replying to this request, innocently sent him a message.

I heard nothing for the rest of the evening.

It was only when John came home that night around midnight that I found out my tweet had indeed been read out in front of 10,000 people.

John hadn’t heard it but he certainly heard about it.

He’s the editor of a Winnipeg entertainment newspaper – Uptown Magazine – and was moved to write about the experience.

The tweet was my way of being present at the festival without being there. But I didn’t really think it would be read out. Apparently it was the first tweet that Jian mentioned :)

Another delicious installment of SuperNews – pure genius, as always, from the folks at Current.

Twitter’s blowing up in this sequel to Twouble with Twitters when celebrities take over the twittersphere. Starring Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Perez Hilton, and P. Diddy as themselves.

Created by Josh Faure-Brac for SuperNews! – an animated sketch comedy series airing on Current TV every Friday night at 10/9c.

The irony? This came across my radar via @ChrisDca on Twitter.

If you’ve been reading the news over the last couple of days you probably heard about the Billy Bob Thornton CBC Radio debacle.

And you probably tried desperately to understand the actor’s odd behaviour. How could he be so arrogant? Was he on something?

Thankfully I can reveal exactly what happened.

This video is part of a new web series by Vancouver-based writer/artist Jeremy Fisher.