• The Waiting Game
• Annie Rhiannon
• UnaRocks
• Hangar Queen
• Red Mum
• Fatmammycat.com
• Well done fillet
• Irish Flirty Something
• Alan in Belfast
• Its a Big Shopping Centre – Haigh
• 10 Questions about…
• English Mum in Ireland
• The Red Scrapbook
• Grannymar
• Mindspill
• Avoiding Life
• Irish KC
• DZ-015 by Rick O’Shea
• Midget Wrangler
• The Spanish Exposition
• Lebanon an Irish Experience
• That Friday Feeling
• Primal Sneeze
• Soloings’ World Cup Blog
• I was looking for a Blog, but then i found a Blog
• One Breast Less
• It had better be good
• Clogging up the Web
• Travors.com
• Kimodo Dreams
• supersimbo
• When the Belfast Child Sins Again
• There it was – Gone!
• All the Way to New York
• Emigration etc
• The Swearing Lady
• Alexia Golez
• theChrisD
• Circle. Square. Triangle.
• Ellen McDermott
• A year out
• Sarah Carey
• Lette’s Blog
• Fake Empire
• Irish Taxi
• Most Sincerely Folks
• Willie Walsh
• Soundtracks For Them
• The Usual Suspect
• All Smoke and Mirrors
• Prototype of a Person
• John Naughton’s online diary
• Anthony McIntyre
• Paul Watson
• Eire Rules
• Alan Says
• Conortje
• Maman Poulet
• Diving the North Antrim Coast
• Head Rambles
• Robin Blandford’s ByteSurgery
• The Biopsy report
• The Voyage
• Sabrina Dent
• Problemchildbride
• 5enses
• Shenanigans
• Down with my Life by Vic Barry
• Lozenge
• Paige Harrison
• Rapture Ponies
• The Life and Times of Jimmny Homunculus

Some of the lists are out already and this is a good thing as Best Blog, Best Personal, Newcomer and the others not listed here are extremely long. In fact if I listed all of the nominations for each category in one post, there’d be a few hundred lines to the post. That’s why those “leaks” are distributed around the Blog O’Sphere.

Some of the urls appear to have either changed or are incorrect. Let us know this. Also, some people may not want to be listed so if that is the case, let us know. Email IrishAwards < at > gmail.com

Also, you will notice that some blogs are in multiple categories even though the rule was two categories at most. The majority of people honoured this but we all have our own views what categories suit the most. With Round 1 of the judging done and all the blogs are ranked, the two categories that a blog ranks best in will be the ones that it will find itself in if it manages to reach the cut for the short lists. Blog Post and Humourous Post are the exceptions of course.

Here’s the longlists out there already:

Best Popculture Blog
Best Photography Blog (Treasa’s url is wrong, we know!)
Best Designed Blog (Nialler9) is actually on this list too
Best Sports and Recreation
Best Business Blog

Best Blog from a Journalist
Best Technology Blog
Best Group Blog
Best Specialist Blog
Best News/Current Affairs

Best Politics Blog
Best Food and Wine Blog

Best Newcomer
Best Arts and Culture Blog
Best Music Blog

To come:
Best Blog
Best Personal Blog
Best Craft Blog
Best use of Irish Language in a Blog
Best Blog Post
Most Humorous Post

The longlists for the Blog Awards will be out before midnight (some are insanely long) but it seems someone in the Blog Awards team is leaking some of the lists to those evil John Waters hating bloggers. Boo! We have a strong suspicion who it is!

So far Popculture, Food and Wine, Music, Politics, Specialist and Design categories have been leaked. Stopped the insane madness!

As stated previously, every blog that was nominated for the 2008 Blog Awards gets judged. Here’s how it works:

Round 1
70+ judges will rate the 700+ blogs that have been nominated for the 2008 Blog Awards. Round 1 Judging for starts this week. Blogs in this round will be judged on quality of writing, interaction and consistency. Once rated, the top scoring blogs will be added to a short list, one for each category. No judge knows what other judges have awarded for any blog.

Round 2
Judges will judge the short list of blogs based on the category they are in along with other criteria. This will create a finalist list.

Winners will be announced on March 1st.

The whole long list will also be released on Wednesday but there are rumours that some are already being leaked online. They should be easy enough to find. Maybe. 🙂

Here, roughly are where nominations came from this year, nice mix of countries:

Ireland
Australia
Israel
Hungary
Iceland
Bulgaria
Switzerland
Lebanon
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
Germany
Spain
Netherlands
Denmark
Sweden
Malaysia
Greece
Hong Kong
Canada
Italy
Malta
France
Luxembourg
United States