Here we go again with another edition of the Life on the Wicked Stage Ink Blot Awards. Six years of this fun is quite a bit, but hey, it's still fun. As I’ve said each year since year two of these awards there is no better description as to why they exist, or why I created them, than what I said the first year. So, here's a bit of history.
I created The Life On The Wicked Stage Ink Blot Awards as a celebration. Yes, it's a celebration of the 1 year anniversary of this blog. But it is more than that. It is a celebration of a community that I have come to know and admire. The Tableteers that make up the Tablet PC Community are an amazing collection of individuals who know and work with the Tablet PC platform. They are fiercely protective of it, insatiably curious about advancing it, very intelligent, often wickedly funny, at one time very forgiving and patient, and in the same breath, scathingly critical when the need arises. They are also exceedingly willing to evangelize the platform to anyone who will listen, and in my humble opinion, have helped keep the spotlight on The Tablet PC in ways that may, in the long run, prove to be responsible for keeping the platform thriving.
Tablet PCs as we’ve known them from the past are basically a dinosaur, thanks largely to Microsoft. The community that loved them has headed off into different directions mostly searching for a mobile Holy Grail. Some think the iPad is that device. Some have hope for Android and what it might be. But we all step over the graves of things like UMPCs, MIDs, and maybe soon Netbooks, while we're looking for that magical mobile whatever. Such are the times, such are the trials, and such are the tales of those who loved Tablets. The majority of mobile gadget entries, including Tablets and slates still look more like odd independent films trying to find distribution. Meanwhile Apple has changed the calendar and the culture in its favor and looks to dominate for some time to come. Apple sucked the oxygen away from anyone who thought they had a chance in this year that was supposed to be "The Year of the Tablet." Turns out it was the year of Apple.
The wacky world of the web continues to be wacky. Facebook is growing so rapidly that soon it looks like it might be the web. Google throws things at the web like a bad chef tossing spaghetti at a wall to see if it is done. Microsoft is trying to make a comeback against long odds and we're all still tweeting, locating, searching, and surfing to what end who knows.
What we call politics these days continued to demean the term, if that's possible. We've finally crossed the Rubicon where the winners are the best liars regardless of the game. Lying, cheating, and stealing are celebrated when it brings victory in ways that should make any mother's toes curl. No where is this more apparent than this week's debate over Don't Ask, Don't Tell, a law that forces the military culture, one that is built on integrity, to lie in order to get by. If that isn't warped I don't know what is and if you call it compromise, then I think we all better start forgetting compromise as a concept pretty soon. The Wikileaks circus, however, proves that if you try to point out the lies you can still get your butt in trouble, even if the lies you are revealing aren't that big a deal anyway. But as I said the lying isn't just relegated to what used to be called the "art of the possible." It's now pervasive in all segments of society. I'm assuming that shortly we'll dispense with courses in ethics and replace them with courses in how to lie.
So this year's awards will cover a wide range of topics but I'll caveat that by saying that there are a lot of repeats. Part of that is due to my being preoccupied with my Mother's terminal illness and her passing. Part of that is due to the fact that there weren't a lot of new folks jumping up and demanding my attention.
The rules for nomination and inclusion (some dubious, some for actual best in class, some just for frivolity) are my own and completely subject to my own whims and fancies. Human nature, no matter the field of endeavor, is ripe with that which needs celebrating and that which needs derision cast its way. That last bit seems even more pertinent this year. Good friend, Tablet PC MVP and fellow GBM contributor, Mark “Sumocat” Sumimoto, christened these awards with the nickname of ‘The Blotties’ in year one, and that sorta stuck. So we'll let it keep sticking. If you don't like the list, go make your own.
I used to lament that I couldn't afford some sort of bash where those honored could get blotto while celebrating. I don't lament that anymore as many of the folks on the list seem to do well enough at that on their own. But if our paths happen to cross, I'll buy you one, if you do the same in return.
So, as always, cue the dancing girls, beat out a tattoo on the drums, sound the trumpets (or the theremin) and get ready for the Sixth Annual Life on the Wicked Stage Ink Blot Awards . Enjoy!
Repeats From Previous Years That Are Still The Best This Year.
- Still the Best Blogger That I Follow: Cliff Gerrish and his blog Echovar
- Still the Best Kept Software Secret that Microsoft Doesn’t Want Anyone To Know About: OneNote
- Still the Best Arrogance: Apple
- Still the Best Tech Blogger Who I Wish Was Still Blogging Award: Rob Bushway
- Still the Best Weekly Feature on a Blog for This Week In Mobile Tech Manor: James Kendrick
- Still the Best I Wish I Twittered That for Comic Tweets That Sum It All Up Nicely Award: Rex Hammond
- Still the Best Why Do We Call It Windows Live Essentials When it is Essentially the Slowest Download of Any Cloud App There Is Award: Windows Live Essentials
- Still the Best Internet Misanthropes: Tie-Loren Feldman and Andrew Keen
- Still the Best I’m Going to be the Last Nokia Fan Blogging and Standing Award: Matt Miller
- Still the Most Fickle and Most Fun Social Networking Advocate Award: Robert Scoble
- Still the Best We’ve Got Less Fail Whales Than We Used To But We Can Still Fail When You Need Us Most Award: Twitter
- Still the Best Tablet PC Blogger: Mark Sumocat Sumimoto
- Still the Best Geek I Follow on Twitter Even Though I Don’t Agree with What He/She Says Award: Michael Gartenberg
- Still the Best Podcast Host: Leo LaPorte
- Still the Best Thorn in Right Wingers Side Award: Shoq
- Still the Best Personal Cloud Solution: PogoPlug
- Still the Best Proof That "Anyone Can Be Replaced” May Not Be Such a Good Maxim Award:David Gregory
- Still the Best Proof That Life Doesn’t Begin at Conception Award and May Never Begin for Some Award: The Tea Party
- Still the Best Tech Blogger: MG Sielger
Blogging and the Web
- Best and Most Missed Geek Blogger: Loren Heiny
- Best Crossover Geek Who Does Print and Blogging: Dwight Silverman
- Best Blogger and Tweeter I Discovered This Year: Jay Rosen
- Best Sellout of the Year: TechCrunch
- Best New Mobile Computing Blog of the Year: Mobiputing
- Best Apple Hater: Sascha Pallenberg
- Best Fruit Hater:jkkmobile
- Best We Still Cover Netbooks Even Though Nobody Cares Award: Steve "Chippy" Paine, Sascha Pallenberg, jkkmobile
- Best and Craziest Black Friday Coverage: Notebooks.com
- Best I'm Going to Figure Out How to Make You Pay For My Content if it Kills Me: Rupert Murdoch
- Best Twitter List I Follow: The Circle of Mickeleh
- Best Out of the Way, We're Taking Over the Web and You Will Like It: Facebook
- Best New Blogging Colleague I've Met in Person: Chris Leckness
- Best New Blogging Colleague I've Never Met: Choung Nguyen
- Best How Does He Keep Going: Xavier Lanier
- Best If Only We Could Have Figured Out How to Make Money From This Before Facebook Got Into the Game: Location Web Services
- Best Platform Provocateur: Tie- John Gruber and Paul Thurrott
- Best Geek I Wish I'd See More Of His Work Lately: Kevin Tofel
- Best Read on the Web: Jeff Jarvis
- Craziest Read on the Web: Mike Cane
- Best Podcast Sidekick: Tie-Andy Ihnatko and Gina Trapani
- Best New Podcast: Tech News Today
- Best Meme That Will Never Go Away: Privacy
- Best Game Ever Played on Mankind in the Modern Age: You Have a Right to Privacy
Tablets, Gadgets, Software and Mobile Computing
- Most Disruptive Force in Tech: Apple
- Best We Waited, We Saw, We Retreated, We Retrenched, and We Hope 2011 Is Better For Us: All other Tablet/Slate Manufacturers in the Wake of the iPad
- Best Year of the Tablet That Wasn't: 2010
- Best We Fell for the Year of the Tablet Hype at CES in 2010 and We'll Probably Fall For It Again: Most Tech Bloggers and Tech Media
- Best Gadget Release of the Year: iPad
- Best Gadget Release of the Year that Might Make People Think Twice About the iPad: MacBook Air
- Best Please Quit Trying Until You Start From Scratch Award: Windows 7 Tablets
- Most Innovative Tablet PC of 2010: No Award Given
- Best Tablet PC Software of 2010: No Award Given
- Best Ok, We Fired The Guy Behind Our Cloud Strategy But We Still Have One, Really We Promise: Microsoft
- Best Definition Bender of the Year: 4G
- Best Remind Me Why We Have MVPs: Microsoft
- Best Software Launch That Washed Away with the Tide: Google Wave
- Best Hey, We Actually Released a Competitor to the iPad and We Sold Some Too Even Though the Ones We Have Coming Next Year Will Be Better: Samsung
- Best Major Company Bitch Fight: Apple and Adobe
- Best Our Past Sins Are Catching Up To Us Thanks To That Damn Steve Jobs: Adobe
- Best Bitch Fight That Is Getting Old: Google and Apple
- Best We Wish We Could Be in a Bitch Fight Again: Microsoft
- Best Attempt at Reinventing Oneself: Microsoft for Windows Phone 7
- Best If All Else Fails We Can Still Play Games: Microsoft for Kinect
- Best Scariest Ad That Shows How Much We Want To Own the World: Verizon
- Best We've Got You By the Balls and We're Gonna Make You Pay While We Watch You Scream: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint
- Best I Think They Almost Believe Their Own Lies: AT&T
- Best Snort Liquid Through Your Nose Laughing Line of the Year: "Don't Hold it That Way"-Apple
- Best We Sure Hope People Might Go Crazy Over This: Google Chrome OS
- Best Platform Agnostic Software: Tie-Evernote and Dropbox
- Best App I Use Everyday: Instapaper
- Best You Don't Need a Keyboard if All You Type Is "Yep" and "Nope": Steve Jobs
- Best Feed Reader: Reeder
- Best We Can't Figure Out the Sex Thing: Apple App Store
- Best Yes We License Android for Tablets But It Ain't Made for Tablets Yet, Suckers: Google
- Best New Tech Impression of Microsoft: Android Fragmentation
- Best Tech Phenomenon That Involves Pigs: Angry Birds
- Best Amoeba Like Takeover of Mobile Tech: Android
- Best Oh, Shit, We Better Get On The Stick, Fire Somebody and Finally Do Something Different: Nokia
- Best Sorriest Attempt at Playing Me Too: Steve Ballmer Holding Up an HP Slate at CES 2010
- Best Yeah, You Think You're Gonna Reinvent The Entertainment Industry So We'll Hold Back Our Content From Your New Internet TV Devices: Big Media
- Best Yeah, You Think You're Gonna Reinvent The Publishing Industry So We'll...well...We'll Do Something As Soon As We Can Figure Out What It Is: Big Publishing
- Best If We Can Survive AntennaGate We Can Survive Anything: Apple
- Best Tech Scandal That Wasn't: GlassGate
- Best JooJoo We Hardly New You: FusionGarage
- Best Bonehead Improvement of the Year: Apple Removing the Screen Rotation Lock from the case on the iPad
Cultural, Political and Everything Else
- Best Worst Political Collapse Since Zachary Taylor Died: The Obama Administration
- Best Proof That Humans Will Screw Up Anything If Given Half a Chance and a Majority: The Democratic Party
- Best Proof That Even the Democrats Will Have A Chance: The Republican Party
- Best Proof That Not Everyone Gets Better With Experience: David Gregory
- Best Blogger With a Sense of Justice, a Sense of Fairness, and Common Sense: Karoli
- Best New Local Twitter Bud: Rob DeHaven
- Best Twitter Bud: Big_In_Va
- Best We Will Rewrite History As We Want It To Be: Texas
- Best Read of the Year: Chris Jones on Roger Ebert
- Best Proof That Politics Has Finally Reached Its Nadir: Dancing with the Stars
- Best Film of the Year: Restrepo
- Best Proof That Our Culture of Lying Isn't a Culture After All It's Just Rotting Bacteria: Glenn Beck
- Best Proof That Even a Retreaded New Trend Can Be Destroyed by Greed: 3D
- Best Disaster of the Year That Tarred Everyone Who Came Close To It: BP Oil Spill
- Best Arrogance When Trying to Take Down The Arrogant: Julian Assange
- Best Mom: Mine
Ink Blots Retired in 2007
- Best Tablet PC Software Site: Tablet PC Post
- Most Consistent and Most Creative Ink Blogger: Mark Sumocat Sumimoto
- Best All Father of Tablet PCs:James Kendrick (What's an All Father anyway?)
- Best Annual Wish List For Santa That Makes All Geeks Think About Committing Crimes To Purchase All The Cool Gadgets: Linda Epstein of TabletPC2.com
Ink Blots Retired in 2006
- Most Obnoxious Tableteer Laugh : Tie-Robert Scoble and myself. (The only reason it is a tie is Scoble's laugh is heard more than mine.)
- Best and Most Frequent Use Of The Word "Cool" in a Tablet PC Blog Post or Podcast: James Kendrick
- Best First Family Of Tablet PCs: The Heiny's
- Best Tablet PC Batman Fan: Marc Orchant
No Awards were Retired in 2008, 2009, or 2010
Previous Ink Blot Awards
