The best praise a company can receive is when its customers win awards for jointly developed projects. Today, we have the pleasure of announcing that Placeblogger.com from Lisa Williams, founder of influential placeblog h2otown.info, has won a Knight 21st Century News Challenge Award.

From the press release:

"As one of the winners of the Knight 21st Century News Challenge, Placeblogger will receive funding for two years to develop and enhance its technology and fund the site's continuing expansion and operation.

Placeblogger.com, the largest directory of local blogs on the web, was launched on January 1, 2007. Founder Lisa Williams developed the site as a way to understand the scope and growth of community sites that allow the residents of a neighborhood, city, town, or region to connect and grow the civic conversation. Built on open-source technology in partnership with Bryght, a leading developer of community sites, Placeblogger surfaces thousands of items from local communities every day. The site allows visitors to find nearby blogs and subscribe to blogs across their city or region.

Through the Knight 21st Century News Challenge, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation pledged to invest up to $5M to fund an array of projects aimed at using digital technology to transform how news is delivered online."

Working closely with Lisa Williams and designer Andrew DeVigal, Bryght delivered information architecture, Drupal development and configuration, social design, hosting and online community strategy to the Placeblogger project.

Bryght's president, Kris Krug notes:

"Citizen journalism enabled by the explosive growth in web technologies and consumer electronics is the future of media and it's awesome to work with Lisa and the Placeblogger team on the leading edge of this exciting space. Thanks to Knight-Ridder and everyone else involved for this award and your recognition of our joint work on this important project."

Congratulations to Placeblogger.com and its founder Lisa Williams for winning a Knight 21st Century News Challenge award. It has been an honour for the Bryght team to be involved with Placeblogger from the project's inception and Bryght looks forward to contributing to the next phases of its development.