HomiesTopperWinners.jpgDear Readers,

After two weeks of nominations and finals voting, and over three quarters of a million pageviews (double last year's pages), we finally have six remarkable winners to wear the Homies Champion Crown for 2012:

THE 2012 WINNERS

Click to Visit Each One
• Best Recipe Blog: Munchin with Munchkin • Best Healthy Cooking Blog: The Clothes Make The Girl • Best Food Photography on a Blog: Nom Nom Paleo • Best Home Design Blog: Bower Power • Best Family Blog: Rockstar Diaries • Best DIY Blog: A Beautiful Mess

WHY THE HOMIES?

There are awards for all sorts of blogs, but no one ever pays enough attention to the home blogs, so we started The Homies. It's our way of surveying the blogosphere each year for the best new home design & cooking blogs and sharing what we find. It's not so much a competition as a celebration of the richness and awesomeness of home bloggers around the world. Join us, share your favorites and check out the ones you don't know.

None of our blogs or past winners are eligible (see below).

THE SCHEDULE

Week 1: Add your favorite home blogs
     Friday, February 24 - Thursday, March 1 (until midnight EST)

Week 2: Vote on the top nominees
     Friday, March 2 - Friday, March 9 (until 3pm EST)

Winner's Day: Winners announced!
     Friday, March 9 afternoon!

THE PRIZES?

The technical prize is $50 to the winner of each category, but the real prize is lots of traffic as we publish the six winners in big congratulatory posts across our network on Friday, March 9th. We want to elevate good home blogs, see who you love and gain awareness for the home niche.

PAST WINNERS

Home Design
    2010 Young House Love
    2009 Remodelista
    2008 design*sponge

Home Tech
    2010 Technology Your Way
    2009 Ikea Hacker
    2008 tie: Engadget & Gizmodo

Kids @ Home
    2010 Under the Sycamore!
    2009 WHATEVER
    2008 Inhabitots

Green Home
    2010 A Way to Garden
    2009 Maya*Made
    2008 Green (Goody)

Home Cooking
    2010 Gina's Skinny Recipes
    2009 Smitten Kitchen
    2008 Vegan Explosion

• All Past Homies Info

FAQs

How does it work?

Nominations for the best blogs in these categories are collected all week and you can vote or nominate as many as you like (but only one nomination per blog per person), we then choose the top six favorites, and then you all get one powerful vote starting next week.

Who is eligible?

Any blog, amateur and professional in the homespace in the six categories listed above. 
 Past winners and Apartment Therapy blogs are not eligible.

What is the homespace?

It's the media space dedicated to folks who love their homes, and it concerns decor, cooking, entertaining, raising kids, working at home and a whole host of green issues. We're willing to think broadly, but, remember, we're not concerned with things like cars, restaurants, the stock market and Hollywood gossip.

How many blogs can I nominate?

As many as you wish.

How many new favorite blogs can I discover?

As many as your brain can handle before bursting.

When do we vote?

After a week of nominations, we'll collect up all your input and sort them down to the top six contenders. On Friday, March 2nd we'll post these top six for a week so that you have plenty of time to see them and vote. With one week of nominating and over one week of voting, we should have a good turnout.

Can we vote more than once?

Not in any one category, but you certainly can vote in all six categories.

Can we encourage our friends to vote (for us, even)?

Yes. Not only can't we stop it, we know that the web is a community and word of mouth is how it works.

How do you catch cheaters?

Our ability to catch cheaters, or those who try to stuff the ballot by voting multiple times under different names is managed by closely watching multiple votes under similar names and/or the same IP address. While it's impossible to be perfect, we seek out and remove any serious multiple voting in these two areas. We will also notify the person suspected.

We are fully aware that schools and offices often will have multiple votes coming from one IP address. We are very good at this point at differentiating between this and someone who is just trying to hack our system.