Raise Your Voice : Voices of 2013

Voices of 2013 was held last night at chichi TwoTonMax in deepest North Melbourne – an airy warehouse space jujjed to the nines with comfy banquettes, vases filled with blooms and the prettiest flowers of all – Australian bloggers in their finery coming together to celebrate a) the best of their kind and b) a year of content well-written. Click here for a full list of finalists for Voices of 2013 – ostensibly a list of Australia’s most influential bloggers across a range of categories including style, family, food and lifestyle.

This is the closest thing to a Christmas party I’ll have this year, celebrating the collective efforts of Australian bloggers – so big props to JustB Australia, Vogue Australia, Taste.com.au, The Good Guys and Ford for recognising the value and influence that independent voices have. Not only are bloggers terrific to collaborate with for a range of brands and causes, their relative ‘niche’ markets mean corporates and businesses enjoy the benefits of established readership relationships and ‘referral power’.

Righteous babes, hands up! At left: Kate Iselin designer of PAVO and editrix of soon-to-be-launched ‘The Vanity Project. At right: Dapper lass and milliner whom I misplaced he business card of. Please, be in touch gorgeous.

Winners of the Voices 2013 awards were:

Personal & Parenting category winner : Tune into Radio Carly
Style & Beauty category winner : Smaggle
Creative & Home category winner : House Of Humble
Food & Wellbeing category winner : Whole Larder Love Rohan
People’s Choice winner : My Darling Lemon Thyme
Ford Sponsor’s Choice winner : cake crumbs & beach sand
The Good Guys Sponsor’s Choice winner : Cook Republic

It was great to see so much excellence in so many categories – not only does it indicate that there’s lots of new people to read up on I previously hadn’t heard of – it also indicates how many different genres and audiences there are, open to the medium of blogging as a news and entertainment source.