MarketingSherpa's Top 10 Best Blogs & Best Podcast of 2006: Readers' Choice Award Results

SUMMARY
The results are in -- here's your guide, including handy hotlinks, to MarketingSherpa readers' favorite marketing-related blogs and podcasts of 2006. Our hearty congratulations to all the winners -- with thousands of votes tallied, this was hard-fought race indeed! Note: Curious about how we picked the winners? Scroll down to the bottom for the 'Behind the Scenes Story' on Sherpa's Awards.
Best Podcast on the topic of Marketing

Across the Sound
by Joseph Jaffe
http://www.acrossthesound.net/

Sherpa Note: This is the first year for the podcasting category. We asked that only readers who actually listened at least a snippet of the nominated podcasts would vote for them. (Yes, we included a hotlink on the voting form to make listening easier.) Congratulations to Joseph for his first-year victory!

Best B-to-B Marketing Blog

B2B Lead Generation Blog
by Brian Carroll
http://blog.startwithalead.com/weblog/

Sherpa Note: Our readership is 65% B-to-B marketers, so this was a hotly contested category. Brian won honorable mention last year and has moved up a notch, sharpening his game. That's tough in a world where blog fatigue can all too easily set in. Brian's new book on the same subject was released in May 2006 by McGraw Hill, so he's having a banner year all around!

Best Blog on Email Marketing

Chris Baggott’s Email Marketing Best Practices
by Chris Baggott
http://exacttarget.typepad.com/chrisbagg...

Sherpa Note: Email Marketing is a new category for us -- last year it was lumped in with 'online marketing.’ Chris' blog won that category this year, and he continues to prove he can dominate his league. This year he also got the highest "Excellent" percent rating out of all 107 nominated blogs across 11 categories. A stunning victory.

Best Blog on Search Marketing

Search Engine Roundtable
Bloggers include: Barry Schwartz, Benjamin Pfeiffer, Chris Boggs, Kim Krause, Shawn Hogan, Ignacio Hernandez, Morgan Carey & Dan Thies
http://www.seroundtable.com/

Sherpa Note: This is the second year in a row for this group Weblog to win the Search category. Notably, the voting for the entire category as a whole was fairly even (aside from one obvious ballot stuffer). The guys did not get the highest total votes, they were second-highest. However, they did nail the highest percent of "Excellent" ratings -- vs 'Not Bad' and 'Blah,' and that's what matters.

Best Blog on Advertising

Adrants
by Steve Hall
http://www.adrants.com/

Sherpa Note: Does sex sell? We've seen data that it can depress ad campaign results. However, obviously it doesn’t hurt you as a blogger in the world of advertising. Steve Hall, known for witty commentary combined with ad photos of scantily clad young women, has obviously captured the hearts of advertising execs.

Best Blog on Marketing to a Specific Consumer Demographic

Andy Wibbels, the Original Blogging Evangelist
by Andy Wibbels
http://andywibbels.com/

Sherpa Note: Andy's blog tells marketers and blog-writers how to attract the blog-reading public. Plus, he's now the proud author of 'Blogwild! A Guide for Small Business Blogging' which got rave reviews from Business Week among others.

Best blog on Affiliate Marketing

ReveNews
by Larry Adams, David Andrews, Connie Berg, Jamie Birch, Chris Boyd, Dave Cole, Joel Comm, Brian Clark, Henry Copeland, Todd Crawford, Chris Criswell, Sean Crotty, Jimmy Daniels, Jeff Doak, Declan Dunn, Ola Edvardsson, Caryl Felicetta, Peter Figueredo, Bill Flitter, Ben Flux, Scott Jangro, Beth Kirsch, Jim Kukral, Duane Kuroda, Dan Leeds, David Lewis, Vinny Lingham, Chris Malta, Colin McDougall, Jonathan Miller, Jeff Molander, Mike Murray, Ben Padnos, Jeremy Palmer, Scott Polk, Wayne Porter, Rick Ramos, Peter Sampson, Chris Sanderson, Brook Schaaf, Tim Storm, Shmuly Tennenhaus, Adam Viener & Brad Waller
http://www.revenews.com/

Sherpa Note: ReveNews is perhaps the oldest blog in this Awards. Launched in 1998 as an RSS headline feed of affiliate marketing news, it's now packed with fresh, original content co-written by merchant-side marketers as well as top affiliate marketing consultants.

Best Blog on the Topic of PR

Active Voice
by Matt "PodBoy"
http://podboy.typepad.com/techvoice/

Sherpa Note: With a name like Active Voice, we strongly suspect this blogger will launch a companion podcast soon.

Best Blog on Small Business Marketing

Duct Tape Marketing
by John Jantsch
http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/weblog....

Sherpa Note: In what can only be termed a Landslide Victory, Duct Tape wins its category for the third straight year in a row. Way to go John!

Best Foreign-Language Blog

Marketing-Blog Biz -- Besserwerberblog * Marketing für Besserwerber
by Frank Herold, Heiko Walkenhorst, Ralf Siegfried, Klaus-Martin Meyer, Christof Hintze, Marlon Ikels, Michael Herrling & Heike Schugens
http://www.marketing-blog.biz/blog/

Sherpa Note: Thanks to our German-speaking readers who voted for this blog. Even if you don't read German, definitely check out this blog's great logo!

Best Blog on General Marketing Topics

Seth Godin’s Blog
by Seth Godin
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Sherpa Note: Seth has been either a winner or an honorable mention every year, and this year mopped up both more votes and more "Excellent" ratings than anyone else in his category. He's also one of the only marketing-household-names in the category. So, are people voting because they adore his blog or because they've heard of him? Either way, we're impressed and you should be, too. If you're a marketing consultant, Seth's brand awareness stature is one to shoot for.

Honorable Mentions: Five More Blogs That Deserve Your Attention

In races that were extremely close, and/or where the runners-up had unusually high "Excellent" ratings, we felt honor-bound to give a shout out to honorable mentions. Here are MarketingSherpa's 2006 Honorable Mentions in alpha order:

-> Adland
by (Nom de Guerres): Åsk Dabitch, Clayton Claymore, Caffeinegoddess and Robblink
http://commercial-archive.com/

-> Future Now: A Day in the Life of a Persuasion Architect
by Howard Kaplan, Anthony C. Garcia Jr., Dave Young & Jim Novo
http://persuasion.typepad.com/

->StartupNation
by Joel Welsh, Jonathan Hudson, Joan Isabella & Sloan Brothers
http://www.startupnation.com/blog/

-> The WebMarketCentral Blog
by Tom Pick
http://webmarketcentral.blogspot.com/

-> Ypulse
by Anastasia Goodstein
http://www.ypulse.com/