Londonist was pleased to see yet another smooth and faultless launch of an -ist site, this time in Austin Texas, a city we initially heard about due to it being the setting for Richard Linklaters engrossing low-fi indie debut, Slacker, but is now firmly on our places to visit (or mooch off people and overstay our welcome) list.
Austin, at least if Ben is to be believed (and we're not sure that he is) is currently being laid to waste by the mighty SXSW festival, initially a Music and Media conference but which has now evolved into a kind of uber festival, including film and interactive elements, kind of a collection of the geek and the good if you will.
We imagine they'll be talking about things like file-sharing (wrong, but it feels oh so right), independent cinema (not as good as it used to be), and blogging as legitimate journalism (in your dreams you right wing nazi cretins), but also it's host to the Bloggies, which as a nominee for the best UK and Ireland Blog, we were of course keeping a close eye on (sitting low in our chair, hands in steeple formation, and chin supported by our thumbs).
Tom Coates over at Plasticbag.org duly won, which is fine, if you want a well designed blog combining personal writing and technical articles done in a inclusive style that non-technical people can understand, then that's just great, we're ok with it, and we hope he enjoys the kitkat.
BoingBoing.net won Best Group Blog and Best Weblog of the Year, while the -ist mother ship Gothamist won the Best Non-Weblog Content of a Weblog Site award, which we're sure they'll be celebrating once they work out what it means.
