PPA 4 Winners Announced

We're pleased to announce the winners of the forth Podcast Peer Awards. You can find a complete list of the winners and the finalists here.

It was a great contest, featuring some of the best shows we've ever judged. Making it to the finals is difficult, and it's always hard to choose the best from the finalists. This year it was so difficult that we had ties in two categories, and had to hold special tie-breaker contests for the "Old School" and "Best Newbee" categories.

We had some cool new Categories for this round. Podfading is common with this art form: Someone creates a podcast, runs it for a few months, then just fades away. The "Old School" category recognized those who have stuck with it. It's for shows that are at least two years old.

The "Exceptional Podcaster" award was not for specific shows, but for individuals who have gone out of their way to help the podcasting community. They've helped raise awareness and expand the popularity of podcasting in a variety of ways. Although there could only be one winner, all the nominees and finalists deserve special recognition. They are a big reason podcasting is so much fun and so popular.

Congratulations to all the winners and finalists. And podcast listeners - you now have a list of the very best podcasts available in the known universe.

PPA 4: Not Quite Done Yet

The voting for the winners of PPA 4 was finished on March 15. But when we tallied up the votes we found we had ties in not just one, but two categories. As a result, we're running a tiebreaker for those categories, and will announce the winners shortly

PPA 3 Winners Announced

Congratulations to all the winners of the third Podcast Peer Awards. You have been judged the best of the best by your fellow podcasters.

comedy4Cast (yes, the capitalization is correct) won two awards: Best Comedy Podcast and Best Short Podcast. The coveted Newbee award went to Mighty Mommies. Podcasters picked Skepticality as the Best Science Podcast, Swingercast as the Best Adult Podcast, and The Financial Aid Podcast as the Best Business Podcast. And no one was surprised to see Grammar Girl win the Favorite Podcast Trophy.

Please visit our Winners page for a list of all the winners and finalists.

Do you agree with the podcasters selection? Do you think someone else should have won? Try all the podcasts in each category and decide. In the process you'll hear some of the very best podcasts on the planet.

Why We Do This

There are over 50,000 audio and video podcasts available. Most of them are lousy. How can you find the ones worth listening to?

Top Ten or Top Twenty-five lists are little more than popularity contests. You'll find some great shows there, shows that deserve their popularity. But you'll also find quite a few that are, well, let's just say that more people listen to Brittany Spears than Miles Davis. If you rely on popularity based lists and awards you'll be missing some of the best shows out there.

Where can you find the best podcasts in the universe? Right here, at the Podcast Peer Awards. These awards are given by the people who know podcasting best - other podcasters. They recognize quality. They celebrate creativity. They ferret out the small, unnoticed, and otherwise ignored shows you've missed. They debate and discuss and argue about these shows as they vote for (and against) audio and video podcasts that cover every style and every approach to podcasting. And in the end, only the best, only the very best, win.