Contest

This has been a terrific contest from my perspective. Not because we attracted lots of outside attention, and not because it generated additional page views for FiringSquad, because it proved what I have been saying for years; FiringSquad has the smartest and most technologically savvy readers of any website out there. I knew we had some great potential writers out there, I just didn’t realize we had so many. If I had the budget, I would have frozen the contest at round 3 and hired the entire top 10 contestants. But unfortunately I don’t, and so we find ourselves here with just one winner.

I did not vote in this contest except in the first round. I decided that my ability to remain impartial would be affected by the day to day running of the contest and any interaction that I would have with the competitors during the contest. So, I left it up to the pros to decide. The pros are the judges and you, the FiringSquad readers. Which brings us to the debate on the voting system.

We designed the voting system so that the FiringSquad readers would have a chance to express their opinions about the contestants, but also so that a little cheating or down-voting would not derail the process. For that reason, we put the majority of the voting power in the hands of the FiringSquad editors, John Callaham, Brandon Bell, Alan Dang, and Jakub Wojnarowicz. All of these guys have been doing this for a long time and know better than most what it takes to keep a site like FiringSquad or any other site growing and prospering. That includes the ability of a person to deliver great editorial content. Generally speaking, I think the voting system worked out very well. We may or may not make changes for season two. Either way, we appreciate the hard work that some of you have done to ensure that voting remains fair and equitable.

As I hope some of you found out, what you get for free on FiringSquad day in and day out requires A LOT OF WORK. Besides the editors who work their tails off, we have Pongky working on system upgrades and site design, Ozy who maintains our server farms in Phoenix and San Jose, and of course there is Lyle, Lynne, and myself trying to keep all the advertisers, sponsors, and corporate partners happy and opening their wallets so that we can continue to serve our audience.

We especially owe a big nod of gratitude to Intel and particularly Dan Snyder, who put their faith in FiringSquad and more importantly our readers to make this contest a success. They recognized early on that FiringSquad readers were the best and the brightest and jumped at the chance to help us prove it. We also have to thank the good people at Intel’s agency, Universal McCann New York, who had the vision to support an idea like this from the beginning.

Finally, I hope that the people who participated but didn’t make it into the finals do not get discouraged. You are all talented writers and could be writing for sites like FiringSquad or one of the hundreds of sites that exist on the web. We hope you come back for season 2 and take another crack at fortune and fame (hah!).

Again, I thank you all for your dedication and participation over the last 3 months. It has been fantastic for all of us here at FiringSquad.

Now, on to the results.

The Winner: JacobVandy
Jacob's entries.


Runner Up: CanadaDave
Dave's entries.