Two years ago, the main portuguese brewery Super Bock created the main blog award event in Portugal, with over 2000 blogs competing to be elected Super Blog. In 2009, we have the 2nd edition with a few improvements, and a chance to see how Portugal’s blogosphere survived the pressure of social networks and microblogging.

Disclaimer: I work for Fullsix, the interactive agency responsible for the online campaign.The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer or Super Bock.

Registrations are still open until the next 23rd February for Portuguese blogs, with the voting taking place afterward until March 24th. Popular vote will elect the top 5 for each category, and the jury will select a category winner and a Super Blog (with a €1500 prize). Special categories include Best Microblog, Blog Angola (for blogs about or written by Angolans), Best Design and Best New Blog.

On the Awards website you can find more about the 14 categories, how to submit your blog and discover hundreds of blogs submitted since the competition started 2 months ago. There’s also the Awards blog, with lots of tips and tricks about blogging, the competition and other useful info.

This year’s edition has Maria João Nogueira, Pedro Rolo Duarte, Fernando Alvim and Alberta Marques Fernandes judging the finalists, elected by popular vote.

You still have a few days left to register your blog, with a few more chances for the following categories: Angola, Science, Corporate, Politics & Economy, Social Causes and Microblogging (there’s lot’s of good tweeple and tumblers out there).

As a sizeable chunk of this blog’s audience is from Portugal, thought this might be of interest. If you’re not keen on registering, any feedback is appreciated to improve one of the few initiatives that recognize bloggers in Portugal. Either that, or we can just have a chilled Super Bock the next time we meet.

Tired of not knowing the faces and stories of those of you who spend precious time reading this blog, and having realized that Google has turned public their Friend Connect service, i’ve placed the gadget on the sidebar (and a review/rate on single pages).

It’s right above my tweets, one of the best places i could get, as readers are the main reason that push me to find fresh inspirations. So, again, thanks for all your attention and let’s connect.

This October 29th, the new book Age Of Conversation 2 is released, a unique collaboration with bloggers from 29 US States and from 14 other nations from Australia to the Ukraine.

Book cover by David Armano

I am fortunate of being part of this conversation as a co-author, doing my best to promote this initiative (expect a podcast next week), as proceeds of the book, available in hardcover, softcover an a downloadable e-book, will be donated to Variety, the international children’s charity.

Each author contributed with one essay, with mine entitled “A new brand of creative: Things fall apart”. To know more about AOC2, you can check out the site at The Age Of Conversation.

If you appreciate my writings or any of the other authors, you can buy AOC2 at Lulu.com.

Welcome to the conversation, Michael, Miguel and Chris, the resident authors of my company’s corporate blog.

While i try to keep this blog mostly personal, it’s great to know that DraftFCB launched a corporate blog (i knew about it a few weeks ago, but now it’s official). On a effort to remain impartial as a blogger, my main critic goes to their decision of not choosing a true blogging platform. These days, any teenager knows how to setup Wordpress.

If you’re interested in our thoughts, insights and opinions about the ad industry, give it a push and subscribe to the RSS feed.

Keeping the geek spirit of the latest post, here’s another nerd themed entry, that will get me some low quality hits for using dirty words and references to naked people. How’s that for a post about a nerd ?

Ok, it’s not actually a nerd, but rather N.E.R.D. (standing for No One Ever Really Dies), headed by the small genius Pharrell Williams. He and his team release this June the 10th their new album “Seeing Sounds“, on what promises to be a summer hit. Have yourself some voyeuristic sexy footage for the advance track Everyone Nose … All The Girls Standing In Line For The Bathroom:

So, anyway, they’ve put up the really lascivious promo site Everyone Nose. Lots of booze, hot women and the advance track playing on the background .
On a great partnership with a blog, they plugged in Last Night’s Party and rolled their own party gallery. Or so they thought, since with great fame comes great responsability and (probably) people asked to remove their pictures (altough i still managed to see quite a few).

I guess the Internet is a different party.

My favorite Brazilian agency revamped their website with some (not) serious shit, on a fullscreen video where we’re all invited to teach and learn vocabulary. It’s like a speed course on swear words, that are collaboratively shared amongst the visitors.

The thing gets really nasty, so get your camera ready and help Gringo to grow their vocabulary. If you understand Portuguese, they also have a blog, with some interesting behind-the-scenes stories.

They really get their audience, not being afraid to push the language, even on a semi-corporate website (they were probably expecting some nsfw uses of the video experience). And most important of all is their overall message: it’s ok to fail.

It’s not always about the visuals. Once in a while there comes a campaign that reminds us that we have more senses to be delighted. While audio advertising had his glory days with radio, it now is starting to fade, increasingly becoming an underrated medium.

The Internet is now offering a new stage for audio experiences, and following the previous post on Arcade Fire’s music video, we now have the latest work from Fantasy Interactive: Porsche Bloodlines, a countdown site for the new Cayenne GTS.

The site is largely based on the concept of the commercial (click video above to play), highlighting the remarkable sounds produced by the historic Porsche models. The 3 week project developed in Flash, has also inner sections including downloads, wallpapers an a audio challenge.

Enjoy the site. With headphones, please.

Shame on you Portuguese readers, for nominating this blog on the Internet category. I just can’t understand how 300 lazy posts managed to grab your attention. Is it the source ? Is it the inspiration ? Oh, i know, it’s those Shameless PromoTions and you feel like thanking me. No need, your projects are that good.

It’s been a hell of a ride since September 2006, talking to readers, deleting more than 30000 spam comments, digging some breaking news, becoming a screener, being listed at AdAge150, guest blogging, and the hardest part, writing regular content.

Thanks.

Well, i guess i’m on a re-blogging week, this time with a few words for Adverblog’s advent calendar.

Adverblog was one of my inspirations to start blogging last year, authored by Martina Zavagno, an Italian interactive marketer and one of the masterminds behind the Diesel Heidies campaign.

So, here’s my 2 cents on it:

1) Which is the digital project that impressed you more this year and why?
Orange Unlimited, for reminding us that simple is beautiful, and building a successful integrated campaign. Other notable projects include the Heidies by Diesel or the recent one by Rexona Power, Spain, “Quien Es Fermin“. As for agencies, Northkingdom and FarFar still amaze us with outstanding work, with some great work coming from Eastern Europe, like ParkStudio’s work for Fanta or Nokia.

2) In your job, which is the most important thing you learnt this year?
I’ve learned to quit looking at my own bellybutton, and start looking to what regular users are doing online. Call it interactive etnography or something like that, but the truth is that we professionals are so much self-absorbed that it all feels like a big echo chamber. For instance, it amazes me the tons of people that don’t have a clue what twitter is, but instead use regular email to keep their friends updated.