According to an email to the semi-quarterfinalists of PRWeek's Blog Competition leaked to PRNewser, Editor-in-Chief Keith O'Brien wants all involved to chill out: "PR people on the Internets have expressed concern about this completely fun competition--that people are spending way too much energy demanding every man, woman, and child vote for their blog."

The remaining eight are:

Intake vs. Beyond the Hype

Communication Overtones vs. PR Squared

Pit Bulls & Labradors vs. Down the Avenue

Glass House vs. Influential Marketing Blog

The email reminds those involved they do not get to hail themselves as Best PR Blog, and that he will not allow it. Hmm. Knock knock, Pandora's Box. As we said before, it's all fun and games till someone looses a head.

O'Brien's full email available after the jump:

Hello -- if I am correct, you are all still in the competition. Congratulations. Now--you are a mix of large and small agency professionals; that's great.

However, PR people on the Internets have expressed concern about this completely fun competition--that people are spending way too much energy demanding every man, woman, and child vote for their blog. The point of this competition was for you to let your readers know through your blog, that you were in the competition, and perhaps a Twitter feed post. But for people who cared about blogs to think about the two, and vote for which one they enjoy more. And then maybe you send out a reminder towards the end for those who haven't voted.

Can we sort of agree that for the rest of the competition, we are not going to go crazy on the self-promotion? Because we're hearing a lot of chatter out there about the competition--some of it bad--that it has gone away from its original intention.

If I may, I would strongly urge people against e-mailing all of their contacts and/or (if in a large agency) sending out an internal e-mail about the vote. That is not the idea of the competition. Can we all agree that we will make promotion minimal, and just enjoy the ride?

As a side note, I just want to point out that the winner of the competition gets a get a post in our tenth anniversary issue. He or she (or they) do not get to proclaim that they are the best PR blog, as determined by PRWeek. Given the loose nature of the competition--and the stumping that people have done--I will not allow such a designation.

Let me know if you have any questions. Have a great weekend. Voting begins again at 5:30 Sunday.

Best,
Keith