Contributor Connect

Yahoo! Contributor Awards: Celebrating Our Contributors of the Year!

By Darnell W.1/25/2011 PST

Once per year, we get the honor and the privilege of selecting some of the brightest stars in our community for special recognition and cash prizes. It's never easy to weigh the merits of each nominee against the others and come up with a winner. After all, the Yahoo! Contributor Network platform was founded on the belief that everyone brings something unique to the table when they "show what they know." Yet, there are contributors who truly go above and beyond — and the Yahoo! Contributor Awards were designed to call out those kinds of achievements.

In 2010, our community rose to the challenge of contributing to some of the world's most-visited sites. For the first time, your work was published on Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Finance, omg!, and many more. Meanwhile, we unveiled a new look, an enhanced platform, and a brand-new name. It's been a year of rapid-fire changes and high expectations. As we grew, this year's winners emerged as leaders in the contributor community, each providing an excellent example in their own way.

We're thrilled to present our 2010 Rookie of the Year and Outstanding Contributor of the Year awards. Our talented rookie will receive a $1,000 cash prize and our outstanding veterans will receive a $1,500 prize. Each receives a shiny, purple profile badge and eternal bragging rights within our contributor community.

Rookie of the Year, 2010

Shawn Humphrey

When Shawn Humphrey joined our platform last June, his talent and drive were immediately apparent. He won a Rising Star award after only a month of publishing. In the months that followed, he managed to climb to "Clout 9" with an Associated Content library that includes more than 300 articles on a wide variety of topics. He caught the eye of our Content Managers with engaging, firsthand coverage of Detroit's primary elections, which found a second home on Yahoo! News. Since then, he has published on a variety of other Yahoo! websites—Yahoo! Local, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! TV, and Yahoo! Movies—and taken on some international news beats.

> Read Shawn's Acceptance Speech

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Given the quality of his writing and the breadth of his library, Shawn is a contributor we're proud to call Rookie of the Year. We hope you'll join us in celebrating his victory and welcoming him to the Yahoo! contributor community!

Outstanding Contributors of the Year, 2010

Ayanna Guyhto
Artist, musician, and gifted writer Ayanna Guyhto is one of the most prominent voices in the the Yahoo! Contributor Network chorus. The notes she strikes are sometimes funny and sometimes serious, but her content is always uniquely engaging and full of personality. It's no surprise that Arts & Entertainment is one category where Ayanna excels—after all, she boasts experience in entertainment and a background in the arts. In addition to the hundreds of A&E articles Ayanna has published on Associated Content over the years, her insightful cultural commentary can now be found on some of the world's leading entertainment destination sites: Yahoo! Movies, Yahoo! TV and omg!. This superstar has been shining bright since the early days of AC, and here's hoping she'll continue surprising & delighting Yahoo! audiences for years to come.

> Read Ayanna's Acceptance Speech

Carol Bengle Gilbert
Carol Bengle Gilbert is a familiar face to most Yahoo! contributors. In addition to being one of our most accomplished Lifestyle and News writers, she has also devoted her time and expertise to helping fellow contributors reach their full potential. As one of Associated Content's flagship Community Guides, Carol has helped countless new users navigate our platform and surpass their personal goals. This isn't Carol's first time winning one of our year-end awards. In 2008, she published a first-person account of a presidential campaign rally that we named "Content of the Year." Carol's talent for balancing the big story with personal reflection is apparent in many of the 500-plus News articles she's published, appearing on AC and Yahoo! News. Her work is timely, well sourced and full of detailed analysis — a great model for citizen journalists hoping to connect with Yahoo!'s global audience of millions.

> Read Carol's Acceptance Speech

Steve Thompson
Steve Thompson has one of the largest, most diverse and most successful Associated Content libraries, having pulled in more than 10 million page views across 3,000 beautifully crafted, evergreen articles. His ability to balance Web-friendly structure with engaging, experience-based storytelling has also made him a favorite of Associated Content and Yahoo! partners over the years — through our platform, he has created more than a thousand articles for happy clients all over the Web. With the launch of the Yahoo! Contributor Network, this consummate professional has been able to pursue his favorite subjects—self-employment and debt-free living—even further. He's now a regular contributor to the world's leading business news site, Yahoo! Finance, and his first person money tips have even appeared on the Yahoo! home page.

> Read Steve's Acceptance Speech

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Please join us in congratulating these outstanding individuals, whose outstanding contributions to Yahoo! Contributor Network in 2010 showcase our platform's amazing potential!

Now, stay tuned to find out who's taking home our prizes for Content of the Year!

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