You can now vote on the nominated blogs for the 2006 Irish Blog Awards.

One vote per person. Please do not abuse the system. Thanks and best of luck to all!

Update: Over 500 votes so far and voting has only been open 48hours. Nice!

Inaugural Blogging Awards to recognize Irish Blogging Talent

2fm DJ Rick O’Shea is to host Ireland’s first ever Blogging Awards. The radio show host will act as MC for the awards bash, billed as the inaugural celebration of Ireland’s online blogging community. The Awards take place on March 11th in Buswells Hotel Dublin at 7pm. O’Shea began his own online weblog in 2005, and volunteered his MC services as one of Ireland’s most high-profile bloggers. Ireland’s blog community has mushroomed in 2005 with over 1000 people now sharing their views and opinions on anything that interests them.

Event organiser Damien Mulley commented on the event “While the Irish blogging community is small right now, the community outputs a considerable amount of work that is consistently of very high quality. With this in mind we decided that having an awards event now would be a way of showing the newest members of the Irish Blogging Community the blogs that our community is most proud of. The awards will be our quality mark.”

Rick O’Shea commented “It’s an honour to be asked to host what we all know will be the first of many nights to honour people who blog”

Blog Facts:
* There are currently 27 Million blogs online.
* A new blog is created every second.
* The total number of blogs double about every 5 months.
* 13% of all blogs are updated at least on a weekly basis.

What is a blog, what is blogging?

Blogging allows anyone to publish and distribute their opinion online about any topic via their own website or a free blogging service. Blogs are like a modern day version of a printing press with the user having full control of the message but additionally blogs allow anyone to comment on the opinons generated by a blogger. This instantly creates a conversation between people from all over the globe.

Well known bloggers:
Jeremy Thompson from Sky News
Inventor of the Web Tim Berners Lee
Author Neil Gaiman
Rosie O’Donnell

Irish Bloggers include:
Labour Deputy Leader Liz McManus
Journalist Sarah Carey
Columnist Richard Delevan

Business Benefits to blogs:

Many companies now monitor blogs to gauge peoples opinions on their products or competitors products. Large and small companies are now also encouraging employees to blog and engage in public discussions via blogs. General Motors, Sun and Microsoft have all created spaces for their employees to blog and to interact with and gauge the opinions of existing and potential new customers.

Amazon are now linking directly to the blogs of authors so their fans can interact with their heros with the chance of more merchandise being purchased

The newest beta version of Internet Explorer was helped a great deal by the Microsoft Engineers engaging with the public and soliciting feedback via a dedicated blog for IE7.

IE7 and why blogging is about to get even bigger:
IE7 now also allows direct subscriptions to blogs and will automatically download and display the latest material from a subscribed blog. With an 80% market share it is predicted that the audience for blogging is going to explode in 2006.

More details about the Blog Awards can be found on the http://www.awards.ie website.

The url for the button is here:

http://www.awards.ie/IrishblogAwardsSmall.gif

Thanks to Dermod for the button

All Sponsorship slots for the 2006 Irish Blog Awards are now full apart from spot prizes for the audience on the night of the event. If you are interested in sponsoring spot prizes then contact me on IrishAwards (at) gmail.com

Additionally if there are enough prizes I would like to have a draw for those that can’t make it on the night. So all readers of this blog can have a chance to win something. But this can only be done if a sponsor steps forward.

If you want to preempt the rush next year and sponsor the overall event or a category then please email me also. Prices have not been decided and categories have not been finalised but whoever contacts me first will get first refusal.

There will be other upcoming events related to Blogs and Technology and there will be opportunities for sole or shared sponsorship of them. If these interest you or a client then see above method for contacting me.

* Best Blogger – Sponsored by Blacknight
* Best Blog Post – Sponsored by Nooked.com
* Most Humorous Post – Sponsored by BEECHER.NET
* Best Photo Blog – Sponsored by Imagefile Ireland.
* Best Fictional Piece in a Blog – Sponsored by IrishBlogs.ie
* Best Arts and Culture Blog – Sponsored by Wiki Ireland
* Best Political Blog – Sponsored by Politics.ie
* Best Group Blog – Sponsored by Boards.ie
* Best Comment/Commenter – Sponsored by Spark Ireland
* Best Personal Blog – Sponsored by Hosting365
* Best Use of the Irish Language in a Blog – SSI-Developer.net
* Best Contribution to the Irish Bloggersphere (Tech wise) – Sponsored by Firstpartners.net
* Best Technology Blog/Blogger – Sponsored by Bitbuzz

I’ve been offered some wine as spot prizes and am still looking for other prizes too if any company wants to throw something in.

Now begins the countdown to the Public Vote.