Gwangju City win prize at Korea Blog Award 2009

- 830,000 visitors, 3rd place in public sector category in national blog awards

The Gwangju City blog, "Bit-chi-ee du-nun chang, ee-ya-gi-ga hu-reun-da" ("Sun shines through the window, stories flow" www.saygj.com), created to strengthen the city's presence online, was awarded 3rd place in the public-sector category of the Korea Blog Award 2009, co-hosted by Korea Blog Business Association, and Korea Press Promotion Foundation.

There are some 20 million blogs in Korea alone, and so these inaugural Korea Blog Awards aim to nominate and recognise substantive Korean blogs, encourage blogging nationally, and promote a sound, advanced blogging culture.

There have previously been awards for companies offering private blog-hosting services, but this was the first time to give awards to individuals' sites from amongst the 20-million strong Korean blogosphere.

Based on 'activation index' statistics from professional blog-hosting companies, and evaluation by professional judges and netizens, the Top 100 individual blog sites were selected, as well as Top 10s in each of the business, public sector, and media categories.

At the first stage of selection in the public sector, and business categories, twenty blogs for each section were chosen based on their 'activation indices'. The final Top 10s were then decided by narrowing down the twenty, based on criteria such as operation method, participation level, content production, content proliferation and so on.

Gwangju City blog drew particular praise for its 830,000 strong visitor count. Since opening the blog in September 2008 it has become a place of rapport and communication with netizens nationwide, with over 370 posts concerning Gwangju culture and happenings.

Gwangju City's blog stands as a good example to other local autonomous regions who are also using blogs to raise their profile online, as it ranked higher than other central government departments on the list, such as the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs.

"Due to the rapid increase in blogging, individuals’ blogs carry as much influence as mainstream media online, and so we develop 'bit-chang' [Gwangju City's Blog] as a Korean national blog, where Gwangju and Gwangju residents can communicate their stories with people nationwide," said a city official.

"This year Gwangju will additionally open and promote an English language blog, to create new channels and bridge the gap between Gwangju residents and people worldwide, and strive to improve the city's image," they added.

The blog award ceremony took place at 6pm on Jan 14th, in the international conference room, 20 floor of the press centre, Seoul.