Lots came out of WBC09, one of the main things was a loose integration of the AWBAs with WBC09.

This year we're going full boat!  Full integration of the Wine Blogger Awards with the WBC10 in Walla Walla, WA!

We're also making a few changes.  First, allow me to explain my thinking on this.  Tom Wark passed the AWBA stewardship to OWC.  I am integrating that WBC10 because rather than fragmenting the wine blogger events I wanted to bring them together.  We're already a pretty distributed community so common events are what bring us together.  This will also allow a WBC activity to extend to more parts of the year.

We started this integration idea by bringing together European Wine Bloggers Conferenc and the North American Wine Bloggers Conference.  Now its just Wine Bloggers Conference.  Now we're bringing in the AWBAs.  While we haven't formally announced it, the name WILL be changed to "Wine Blogger Awards" and drop the "American" from the title.

Now, about the Wine Blogger Awards itself.  I originally started down the path of making wholesale changes and creating a process for working the blogs outside North America.  Tom cautioned me on how difficult that would be and he was most certainly right.  To that end, we'll be taking baby steps.  I am submitting that we'll have an "International" category meaning non-english speaking blogs.  And for English blogs, we'll add ANY english blog from ANYWHERE to EVERY category.

Beyond that category, we would like to add 1-2 more categories.  I believe the best suggestion we recieved at the WBC was a category for "Best NEW Blog" meaning a blog that was less than 1 year out of the gate.  Sort of a Rookie of the Year award.

Beyond that, I'm pretty open.  So below I am opening the "Suggestion Box" for 1 week to collect any other suggestions for new categories beyond "International" and "Rookie of the Year".  Fire away!