Reality on Bravo

Project Blog is an ongoing competition that coincides with Bravo’s Project Runway. Every week, blogtestants from all over the blog-o-sphere compete in blogging challenges. Every week, the top blogger wins a special prize and, more importantly, immunity and the blogger with the lowest score is eliminated. There are prizes for readers too! Leave a comment to enter for the week two prize here. And you can play along on your own blog if you’d like email me at allison.boyer-at-yahoo-dot-com with your entries, and I’ll show you a little link love AND give you an additional entry in the prize for that given week!

In this past week’s challenge, blogtestants were asked to give us a post that sums up themselves, their blog, and why they write. You can find a list of their entries here.

You guys voted to pick the reader’s favorites, who get points, which are added to the judges’ scores to create a final score for each player. Project Blog Judges are Beth (the winner of the Reality on Bravo “Create your own Reality Show” contest), April (a freelance writer and the blogger for Life as a Christian Woman), and myself.

Imagine, if you will, that the bloggers are lined up on a virtual runway, because it’s time to announce the winner! There was some stiff competition this week, but the person with the highest score is….

Winnie, we thought it was great that you’ve built such a community on your blog - you definitely know what they like to read, and that’s a very, very good thing for any blogger! Jodie, your entry was smart, sassy, and fun to read.

It was a tough call between you three, but ultimately Kate won because she really showed us our heart and soul in this blog post. Says one judge, “You took your blog and made me read past the words and the stories to the point of feeling like I know you.”

On top of that, you shined as a blogger by doing three things that many of the other bloggers didn’t do. First, you linked. I mean, you LINKED. Someone who doesn’t read your blog had no trouble understanding what you were talking about because you linked back to every story you references. Second, you used a picture. Pictures are the life of blogs - they draw readers in even if those readers are not initially interested in your site.

And third? You commented. Everywhere. On every competitor blog we read, you were there, leaving comments. Without the blogger comments on others’ site the blog dies. This week was all about showin’ us what ya got…and you did! So congratulations, Kate. You and your blog, Babylune, win week one of Project Blog!!

And now for the part I don’t like…the elimination.

Sigh.

You’re all wonderful bloggers, but we do have a few comments for the bottom two before making an elimination. Congratulations Winnie, Jodie, Mark, Kara, and Sally. Your scores have qualified you to remain in the competition> you may leave the virtual runway.

That leaves us with the bottom two. Cynthia and Randi, let’s bring out your models…er…blogs so we can make a few comments.

Cynthia, we thought your entry “The Five TV Shows that Changed My Life” was great from the perspective of blogging - you included some fun pictures and lists are always GREAT to keep reader interested. However, that’s where it ended. You didn’t really zone in and focus on the challenge - to tell why your blog exists. These shows changes your life, but why should that be important to us? What do you hope to accomplish with your blog? Says one judge, “I was brought to the sale, but not sold.” Says another, “I really liked the effort, but there was a missing element that connected TV changing your life to why you blog about it.”

Randi, we liked that you told us the complete story of why you blog on Brad Pitt Watch. We understand why you love Brad Pitt and we got the connection as to why you blog about him and even why you blog with 451 Press. But here, there was no wow factor. Says one judge, “I kind of felt like you were talking down to me. A lot more readers than you realize may live in rural areas where there isn’t a Starbucks or Target or Walmart. Your explanation as to why you blog seemed generic. What blogger doesn’t have something inside that they’d like to say?”

Now here’s the hard part…this week, we’re eliminating:

You lucky ducks. hehe.

In light of Zem and Dana dropping out of the competition, we’ve decided to let you all stay! To everyone, though (not just the lowest scorers) this is your one pass. Next week there WILL be an elimination, and anything can happen, so do your best at the challenges!