Double Immunity Reigns Supreme
From March 5, 2006 | Permalink
For these deep and truly expansive challenge entries we enlisted the local blogging expertise of George and Ben; founders of the Grand Rapids, Michigan based online community G-Rad.org. Tim and Morgan and Alex have been awarded The Laser Mind Control Eyes of Immunity in our second double immunity. Tim and Morgan's entry took us deep into the 15 year old world of Arizona, while Alex's blissful and tranquil entry on Anacortes made us book our next vacation to his corner of these beautiful United States.
We had a wonderful time on our 11 cyber vacations and we've enjoyed seeing our contestants start to show their personalities and blogging style. We feel that the contestants are really stepping up their game both in media use and deep content.
Now the remaining 11 contestants must vote for two more as we whittle down to our final nine bloggers. Votes are due by Monday, March 6th, at 5:00 pm PST and we will reveal the results along with the next challenge on Tuesday, March 7th.
Special thanks to George and Ben and the whole G-Rad crew, who are closely following the competition.
READ ALL of the Challenge #2 entries.
Well, it's clearly impossible not to love Tim and Morgan. And Alex? He wows every time with the elegant formatting and rich content.
Sigh.
(But yay for the guys!)
If Tim and Morgan don't win this whole thing will be a joke. It was bad enough when Tina was kicked out.
2:14 AM on 03/06/06 2:18 AM on 03/06/06 2:29 AM on 03/06/06Great job, guys!
Question to judges:
How much of this competition is about technology? Shouldn't the quality of the writing be considered most highly since it's a blogging competition? I like a video as much as the next person, but it should work to empasize a point or make a final joke rather than be the entire post.
the ol' words versus pictures debate! back again!
let 'er rip dudes!
congrats alex tim and morgan.
i also really loved sg's though she might have had a disadvantage on this challenge by being from portland. her video was as confusing and beautiful as the phsyical 24 hour church of elvis used to make me feel. touching the older school vibe of pdx. yeah. others were also really good this time around. people are digging in deeper it seems. shit is getting good.
wish i could read the ichats on the t&m video. bet it was totally top secret coded messages to alliance members.
also
stuffed crust pizza
peace
adm
As far as the writing vs. multi-media, we try as hard as we can to avoid that argument, as blogging encompasses all the forms (podcasting, video-blogging (vlogging?), blogging, etc.). It's true that when most people think of a blog, they think of written material... but it's also true that the most successful blogs simply link to other people's content...
As we are only presenting the winners, it's difficult to see that some of the non-video entries are always very close to winning. For example, Eric won immunity with only his words, and while Alex's first entry included a video, the concept of his pitch was spelled out in words.
In this entry we saw a LOT of video, and it was exciting to see people experiment with putting a tiny bit of video in a post!
I think it's also an issue of personal taste. I read boinboing and metafilter and all that for links, but there are a lot of really successful bloggers who are just writing, too, and I really think it's just a preference thing at this point. What about Dooce or Mimi Smartypants? I would argue they shaped blogs and are are as big as some of the bigger Kottke type blogs. Just different types of talent.
We like writing! we love it! in last years ultimate blogger we had many immunity winning entries that were pure writing from Lyova and Ritchey and others I believe.
We view blogging as multi faceted and wanted to represent that view with our contestants. We knew that Tim and Morgan (and also Tina) would be primarily videos so we don't really expect a lot of writing from them. We knew other people like Eric or Lauren or Zoe or Brittanie were more pure writers and that is what we expect from them, but it is also exciting when people try to branch out.
Our criteria for judging the posts is based on these 3 main things - entertainment value/does this post show your personality(distinctive voice)/how well it responds to the specific challenge.
There were many varying opinions about this challenge between the 6 people who had votes. Votes were spread across the board.
11:02 AM on 03/06/06Good to know the judging criteria; that's really what I was curious about. I do think the judges and the contestants are doing a great job so far. I think my prejudices about writing vs. video are showing more than the judges'. Just curious to hear what people thought.
(Man, my spelling is atrocious in these posts, sorry!)
Oh, so THAT'S what we're being judged on!
Still, I'm waiting with *baited breath* for the challenge all about lipstick.
Because lipstick videos? Really boring.
Hey David, tell us who you'd have picked and why! I'm always up for hearing about people's favorites!
I liked Zoe's the best this week. When we see something as already-sussed as NYC, it is always nice to see someone insert herself into the pictures with the people of her environs to provide us with a genuinely homey perspective. The pictures made me want to read more. Eric's was good, but nowhere as near as good as last week's; I felt the digression from the subject was weak and didn't work to his benefit. However, I pray that he does not get voted off. But it is really crazy that he is from Glastonbury, and that Mike is from Meriden, which, coincidentally, provided fodder for the most hilariously boring Monopoly board. Mike would get the "double" of the double immunity, because he knows you can't really dress up Meriden. I, however, had the best town to write about (and I did, and do) and it is located very close to the two aformentioned places. This week, compounded with the jaw-dropping eliminations of last week, prove that season two of this show will be closely watched by myself and my constituents.
Aww, thanks David! I'm glad you enjoyed exactly what I was trying to do--personalize what can be considered a pretty impersonal place.
I think the immunity choices were great. I think there were a whole lot of awesome posts (mine not being one unfortunately). Tim and Morgan: "it was very delicious." genius. Alex, awesome posts that reflect the audience well, and keep beautiful formatting. so good dudes.
Tim
No doubt that as soon as Alex doesn't win immunity he will be voted out. It's stupid getting the other contestants to vote.
2:58 AM on 03/07/06
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