Bro. Eli Soriano, award-winning blogger of esoriano.wordpress.com, landed a spot in the Shorty Awards shortlist this year. He is included in the final six out of 1,729 nominees, making him an official contender as Blogger of the Year in Twitter this 2012.
Prior to his nomination in the Shorty’s, Bro. Eli has been twice recognized for his blog in both local and international competitions. In 2009, the international evangelist was Most Educational To Follow in the Open Web Awards by Mashable, with CEO Pete Cashmore describing his blog “the best in its field.” His recent win was in the 12th Philippine Web Awards People’s Choice for the same category in 2011 wherein his blog was declared the Most Popular Website of the Year.
Since he started blogging in April 2007, Bro. Eli had written articles on controversial as well as sensitive topics and issues in religion. Some of his widely-read and frequently-shared posts are topics that tackled the Bible-and-science connection, social issues like suicide and homosexuality, and headline-grabbing events. He also blogged his exposés of the beliefs of other religions which he considers to be in direct conflict with biblical principles.
His blogs also impart Bible-based advice on moral issues and problems confronting human society as a whole.
During the third annual Shorty Awards, Bro. Eli made it third in the television category. Although he did not receive the top award, Bro. Eli was ranked among the leading names on television, including Sesame Street and How I Met Your Mother, to name a few.
This year, Bro. Eli is competing with notable bloggers that include Motivator Super, Harry Hitchens, Thread of Pangeran, Gabriel, and Glee star Dianna Agron.
The nominees who made it to the final six in the different categories will undergo deliberation and review of their social media content by the members of the Real Time Academy of Short-Form Arts and Sciences, composed of renowned personalities in the field of technology, culture and entertainment, business, and mass media. Included are Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and entertainer MC Hammer.
The results of the voting came out after continuous nominations via Twitter which began January 3 and ended February 17. The process required as much nominations from active Twitter users, generally in one official category specified by Shorty. Each nomination is accompanied by one unique reason.
Normally, those with a large following on Twitter have better chances of getting a greater number of votes. Bro. Eli has 26, 565 followers on Twitter as of this writing.
The Shorty Awards is the Oscars for Twitter as described by The New York Times. The award-giving body recognizes outstanding short-form content writers and innovative users of social media.
The awarding ceremonies will be on March 26 at the Times Center, Times Square New York City.
