I’m piling through the photos on Flickr of all the fantastic people that showed up last night for the Best of 604 awards reception. Some may think it’s a silly idea to have an awards night for bloggers and websites, but I think that (especially in this town) so much effort, passion, care, humour, and personality goes into creating such great content that everyone deserved a night out regardless.

Photo credit: Derek Miller on Flickr

I’m so thankful that so many people were able to come out – bloggers, media, friends, family, and many people that I have known in the online realm for years and just last night had the chance to meet. The fact that they all assembled to chat, eat, drink, and celebrate their own work, as well as others makes me so proud to be a part of this city.

The most important element of the evening was the cause and together we raised $1,845 for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society.

Photo credit: Derek Miller on Flickr

Photo credit: Raul on Flickr

Photo credit: Keira-Anne on Flickr

Photo credit: Raul on Flickr

To say that I’m touched by the efforts of so many is an understatement. I want to thank everyone that attended, those who voted, and every single person that has inspired me to keep doing all of this day in and day out – whether they are aware of it or not.

Photo credit: Derek Miller on Flickr

According to the overwhelming positive response I’m pretty sure I’m on the hook to make this an annual event so keep your eyes peeled in later November 2009 for the Best of 604 (and 778) to make a return.

I’d like to give a shout out to the wonderful ladies who ran the door last night and were so incredibly helpful, Rosemary, Marina, and Kate. Thanks to Jenny and Keira for being my lovely prize assistants, and to John for the music – I’m SO glad I got to hear some International Noise Conspiracy.

My best friend and love of my life – John and Me
Photo credit: Raul on Flickr

Please check out the Best of 604 site for all the sponsor links, they really came through with some super prizes and if you enjoyed the venue like I did, consider heading back to The Cellar for a good time.

Below is a list of of results from the voting in each of the 14 categories. Some of the winners were not in attendance so I’ll try to touch base with them regarding their prizes.

Best site for Sports:
1. BC Soccer Web 35% ^*
2. Canucks Hockey Blog 35%
3. Outdoor Vancouver 15%

Best Podcast (audio or video):
1. Lipgloss and Laptops 35%
2. Choogle On 14%
3. TikiBar TV 11%

Best site for Events:
1. Beyond Robson 40%
2. From Blown Speakers 19%
3. Vancity Buzz 13%

Best Multi-Author site:
1. The Tyee 23%
2. Beyond Robson 16%
3. Vancouver is Awesome 15%

Best New Blog of 2008:
1. Modern Mix Vancouver 31%
2. 3 Degrees West 12%
3.Tiny Bites 9%

Best site for Tech:
1. Buzz Networker 21%
2. Techvibes 18%
3. iPhone in Canada 16%

Best site for News:
1. The Tyee 23%
2. CBC 21%
3.News 1130 16%

Best site for Politics:
1. The Tyee 35%
2. Matthew Good 22%
3. Jonathon Narvey 18%

Best site for Humor:
1. The Province Live @ 5 24% ^*
2. CondoHype 17%
3. Your Dose of Lunacy 13%

Best Company blog:
1. Raincity Studios 18%
2. BuildDirect 17%
3. 3 Degrees West 10%

Best site for Food (directory or blog):
1. The Well-Tempered Chocolatier 14% ^*
2. Farmstead Wines 11%
3. Chow Times 10%

Best site for Photos:
1. Waxy Photography 16% ^*
2. Marc L’Esperance 13%
3. Blue Olive Photography 11%

Best site for Fashion or Style:
1. Demicouture 24%
2. The Style Spy 20%
3. The Conveyor Belt 17%

Best Personal site:
1. John Chow 46%
2. Gus Greeper 7%
3. Delicious Juice 6%

^*Prizes have yet to be collected.

I had no idea this would have such a response and grow to become what it has (with over 6,000 votes to boot!) I’m looking forward to next year; to watching all of these great sites grow, discovering new sites, and celebrating the hard work of each one of these content producers.

Photos from the evening can be found tagged as “Bestof604” on Flickr, such as Raul’s great collection, and Tawcan has some up on his site as well.

There are some badges on my Flickr although you may even want to make your own, please feel free.

Update: Ianiv streamed the entire awards presentation with Qik, you can check it out here.

Tonight at 6:00pm about 200 people will be gathering at The Cellar for food, drinks, supporting the Food Bank, and celebrating the efforts of all those who contribute online in Metro Vancouver. Here’s a quick rundown of what to expect today for the Best of 604.

Doors are at 6:00pm and admission is by monetary (cash/cheque) donation to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society. I will have three lovely volunteers handing out a complimentary drink ticket (until 7:00pm), accepting your donation, and handing out raffle tickets. There will also be some finger foods supplied however as we’re at max capacity make sure to show up on time in order to get in on these goodies.

The awards announcements will take place around 7:15pm/7:30pm and I’ll go through all the runners up, as well as announce and award the winners with prizes donated by our gracious sponsors.

Please make sure to RSVP here – we sold out already but I have released a few extra tickets.

A note to the ladies (and the gents), I know a few of us are dressing up a little (I’m hoping to get a sweet dress this morning). As I explained on Twitter last night, my business is blogging (freelance, Miss604.com, sixty4media consulting etc.) so I won’t really have an office Christmas party this year. This is as close as I’ll get so I’m going to try and doll up a bit and celebrate the year with all of you. This doesn’t mean you have to dress up – jeans are very welcome – it’s just that I’ve had a few inquiries about attire.

Finally, be sure to have cast your vote for the awards – we have almost 6,000 votes in already so make sure you have made your favourite known.

Please let me know if you have any questions and I look forward to seeing everyone tonight. Remember to RSVP and I’ll print a list of the winners right here on Miss604.com tomorrow morning.

Photo credit: nep on Flickr

As there are only 3 days left to vote for your favourite websites in the region for the Best of 604, here is a quick update on the Awards Reception (RSVP now if you haven’t already).

Over 4,500 votes have been counted (or at least collected by my polling system) thus far so make sure you cast your ballot for your favourite sites in the region by midday Thursday.

As of midnight December 4th, voting is now open for the Best of 604 people’s choice awards for their favourite sites and blogs in the region.

Quick Facts:

Big thank you to The Cellar for hosting the awards reception, which will take place at 6:00pm on December 11th. Please RSVP on the Eventbrite page, even if you’ve spotted the event listing on Facebook or Upcoming as well.

Good luck everyone, I’m really looking forward to getting together, supporting a great cause, and celebrating all of your very hard work.

Each year around the time of my blogiversary I write a reflective post or hold a contest. For 2008 I’m going to invite everyone celebrate the online efforts of others from across the region with the Best of 604, since being ‘hyper-local’ is what I do.

As often as I can, I try to highlight and promote local business, organizations, bloggers, and online triumphs. In 2007 I started the Best of 604 wherein I listed some of my favourite things around the region.

This year, I wanted to leave the nomination and voting to the public (that way no one can wonder what my mystery formula was for calculating winners). The nominees do NOT have to be blogs – they can be any website that fits into any of the 14 categories.

Who do you turn to for information? What site do you check first thing in the morning (or ten times a day)? Who do you love to read? This is all about the best of our region, and we should all be proud of the many accomplishments of our friends, neighbours, and peers. It’s the people’s choice awards for Metro Vancouver online.

How it works:

Head to the Best of 604 website and enter your nomination in the variety of categories – from Best News Site to Best Personal Blog – by leaving a comment. After one week (on December 4th) I will flip the switch and have official voting ballots available until December 11th.

Come on back and see if your pick has made the cut and together at a private awards reception on December 11th at The Cellar, we will congratulate the Best of the online 604 with recognition and prizes.

More info:

Rules, Nominate and Vote, Contact, and Sponsors.

Tickets for the awards reception are available through EventBrite and admission on the 11th is by (monetary) donation to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society (official donation envelopes will be available). Anyone who attends and donates to the Food Bank will receive one of their Community Angel pins.

Everyone is invited to attend the reception, although please make sure to RSVP through EventBrite.

This autumn I introduced the Best of 604, in response to a local newspaper’s Best of Vancouver. Sure, my categories weren’t as diverse but I’m pretty free to build upon the Best of 604 at any time, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Photo credit: Kris Krug on Flickr

Reading Morning Brew this morning, I saw a link to the 24 Hours’ “24 ways to avoid your family“, which ended up being a list of “Vancouver’s best time-wasting web sites”.

They included the Katkam, which is a given, Urban Vancouver – a really great compilation on which anyone can write and Translink’s i-move.ca (that if you Google, my site comes up second, with Darren’s first).

A couple of the suggested reads made me chuckle to myself so I figured the best thing for me to do would be to make my own list.

Best of 604: Local Website Edition

Best Webcam that isn’t the Katkam: Numinous
Best Traffic Webcams and route info: GVRD directory

Best Site to get Surrey News: Surrey Leader
Best Site to get Burnaby News: A Burnaby blogger needs to Contact me.
Best Site to get New Westminster News: Royal City Record
Best Independent Daily News Source: The Tyee

Best. Lists. Ever.: Meg Fowler
Best Mommy blogger: Duck Cake
Best Marketing Blogger (that gives us free things): Darren Barefoot

Photo credit: Duane Storey on Flickr

Best Site for iPhone Users in Vancouver: John Biehler
Best Gadget Review site: Roland Tanglao

Local Radio Station That “Gets” It: 95 Crave, from their Drupal website, on-air personality blogs, to Ustream broadcasts.

Best Socialization and Silliness posts: Net Chick
Best Local Facebook Guru: Phillip Jeffrey
Best Concert Posters: ChalkedUp
Best HDR Photography: Coriolistic Anachronisms and Duane Storey

Hardest Working Podcaster: Dave Olson (upwards of six different podcasts for your listening pleasure)

Photo credit: Dave Olson on Flickr

Best Coffee Resource: Vancouver Coffee
Best City Development Resource: Pacific Metropolis

Best New Tech Blog: Techvibes
Best New Eco-Friendly Directory: happyfrog
Best New Restaurant Directory: Urbanspoon

Best New Blog (to me, in 2007) – Commuting: Paul Hillsdon
Best New Blog (to me, in 2007) – Shopping: The Style Spy
Best New Blog (to me, in 2007) – Restaurant Reviews: Raul’s “Dining out”

Most inspirational: Derek Miller and his wife Airdrie. Derek’s living with stage 4 metastatic cancer and blogging every step of the way.

If you are looking for anything else in Vancouver, try my categories “cheap things to do“, “stanley park“, “food“, “shopping“, “conference” and even “what the surrey“.

If you disagree with any of my choices, please make your own list (pass it on!), leave a comment below, or send links my way either on my contact form or via del.icio.us (tag your link as “for:miss604″).

Last month I put out a “Family Edition” of the Best of 604, focusing on parks, playgrounds and kid-friendly establishments. Having never been to one of the parks I recommended I did so solely on my sister’s advice. She has three kids, 7 years old and younger, so she knows a good park when she sees one.

Luckily for a reader of mine, the park proved to be all that and more. She tried to take her family to the pumpkin patch in Steveston last Sunday but it was just way too busy, they even told her it would be over 2 hours to get in and that if she had something else to do, she should do it…

…So, we turned around and I desperately tried to think of something to calm our 3 year old who, at this point, was crying, “Why can’t I go see Corny?” I then remembered a blog of yours in the last few weeks about family things to do around Vancouver and remembered the park in the flight path near YVR that you recommended.

Flight Path Park – Photo credit: Darren Barefoot on Flickr

So we zoomed over there, had our picnic and let the kids play. Our 3 yr old had a blast and the day was saved! Thanks – I really enjoy your blog, and saving us from being cooped up in the car with a crying toddler is no small feat!
[Contact Form Email from Naomi]

I’m so glad to get such a nice email, and a follow up on the recommendation for the Best of 604.

On a side note, the Steveston pumpkin patch is mentioned in last year’s “Pumpkin Patch Review“, which was written by my sister – she’s my correspondent when it comes to family-friendly matters, obviously.

Since I’m getting tons of Google hits from people looking for pumpkin patch information, and the post is from 2006, if you do have any updates, raves or reviews, please leave a comment and let us know, thanks!

To continue the “Best of 604″ I’ve put together a hodge podge of some more things I like and would recommend. This isn’t to compete with any other list, this is simply my spin on things as these are people, places and things that I personally find pleasant. With some help I hope to cover a different spectrum, all inclusive of the entire “604“.

Downtown:

Metro Vancouver:

The “Best of 604″ will be an ongoing series, so watch for more posts in this category.

The annual “Best of Vancouver” issue of The Georgia Straight left me wanting more and had some of my readers saying wondering just what we’ve done to deserve Nickelback as a top band in our city? Because of this, I’ve decided to follow in the footsteps of the MaGoggy‘s and create my own awards, the Best of 604. These are not the things that are highest rated by Zagat or that have the most stars. These are people, places and things that I personally find enjoyable. With some help from John and my sister Jenny I hope to cover a different spectrum, all inclusive of the “604“.

The “Best of 604″ will be an ongoing series, so watch for more posts in this category.

I wanted to touch on a ‘real’ demographic and ‘real’ places in and around Metro Vancouver. The first edition of the “Best of 604″ is focused on family. Here are Jen’s recommendations.

Photo is property of True Colors Painting Ltd.