Deutsche Welle International is running its BOBS (Best Of the Blogs) 2005 Awards, commencing September 1. This is the second year running and the winners from last year are listed here.

The site says there are thirteen categories, although it looks to me more like five categories, one of which has nine language sub-categories. Categories are: Best weblog, Best multimedia weblog, Best podcasting site, Special award from Reporters without Borders, Best journalistic site in one of the following languages – Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish.

Interesting that there is no category for business blogs, let alone corporate, small business etc sub-categories. Can we take from that omission that this very well established European media company does not see business blogging as having a sufficiently distinctive place yet? The jury composition looks strongly weighted to a journalist’s view of the blogosphere and is interestingly international. And there appears to be only one non-media sponsor, a hotel, in among the Sponsors and Media Partners.

One reason I’m very interested in this is that I’ve been communicating with some other Australian bloggers about the idea of a business blogging conference in our part of the world. I guess we all see the blogosphere, as we do the world generally, from our own vantage points, but the BOBS categories suggest to me that the idea of business blogging as a significant sector of the blogosphere, with its own characteristics and issues, might not not have achieved a high level of recognition outside the USA.