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Blog party

The online community is gathering in Dublin this weekend for the annual Irish Blog Awards aka The Bloscars, writes Declan Cashin

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By Declan Cashin
Friday Feb 29 2008

The award season in Hollywood may just have come to an end with the Oscars last week, but the biggest prize-giving ceremony in the blogosphere is due to take place tomorrow night in Dublin.

The third annual Irish Blog Awards will see trophies handed out in 22 categories, covering photography, sport, business, the arts and current affairs. The judges for the awards -- who are all bloggers themselves -- had to rate some 700 blogs in the first round of voting, judging on "quality of writing, interaction and consistency".

The top-scoring blogs were then whittled down to a shortlist in each category, and judges will then create a finalists' list to be announced on the night of the ceremony itself in Dublin's Alexander Hotel.

Organiser Damien Mulley says the motivation behind the "Bloscars" is not just about celebrating Irish blogging talent. "The awards were set up to show the high quality of Irish blogs, but it was also a good way of setting a standard and telling the new kids on the block that this is what they should aim for," Mulley explains.

Mulley adds that the evolution of the awards was very much based on interaction with other bloggers. "It was very much self-organising from the start," he says. "While I came up with the idea and I organise it, there was constant solicitation for feedback from the blogging community. It was the group as a whole that chose the categories and a lot of the judging criteria, and bloggers themselves were fantastic for getting the word out."

The awards event itself is funded by sponsorship in the different categories by a variety of firms and businesses. The sponsorship pays for the trophies and the costs of holding the event, but the money raised by the €10 door charge all goes to charity. The chosen recipients this year are The Irish Epilepsy Society, St Francis' Hospice and the MS Society of Ireland.

"I didn't have to do any knocking on doors to get sponsorship," Mulley reveals. "All I did was post on my blog and the Blog Awards site. I think the sponsors like it for the fact that they generally have a great time when they come to the awards. It's very informal, with no black-tie rules and no boring dinners. They get to meet all the nominees and just have fun."

RTE 2FM presenter Rick O'Shea, who is also an avid blogger and is nominated for the Best Pop Culture blog, seconds that motion. "I've been to a few other award things, but this is my favourite," O'Shea says. "It's very chilled and there's no bitchiness to it. It's just all about people who read each other's stuff all the time, so it's done in great spirit."

The acerbic Twenty Major has been the big winner for the past two years, claiming back-to-back wins in the Best Overall Blog category. Twenty -- whose identity remains hidden behind that pseudonym -- admits that the awards upped his profile considerably.

He even landed a publishing deal for a "blook" (a book based on a blog) -- the first of its kind in Ireland -- entitled The Order of the Phoenix Park, which is due out in a matter of weeks. "The awards have played a really big part in making blogging more mainstream in Ireland and moving it away from the perception that it was something for techies and nerds," Twenty explains.

The blogging culture has come under attack in recent weeks from the likes of Irish Times columnist John Waters, who branded the medium nonsense and asked on national radio if there was a blogger "who could string three sentences together". (Waters was subsequently challenged on radio by blogger and journalist Sarah Carey.)

But the response from the blogging community's leading proponents could be summed up as: if the establishment is coming after us, we must be doing something right.

"I thought John Waters' quotes were borne out of ignorance," Twenty states. "He had no real grasp of what the medium was about, yet was quite happy to slag it off without giving it a chance. If you're going to make wild, sweeping statements about something you'd be best advised to do a bit of research first."

Rick O'Shea has a different spin on the row. "I don't think the blogging community wants or needs mainstream respect or recognition," he says. "It only matters that people are reading your blog. We know there are great blog writers out there. The blogging community doesn't need anyone but the blogging community."

n For more information see: awards.ie/blogawardsBlog Heads: the best online writing

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Boing Boing: Subtitled 'A Directory of Wonderful Things', Boing Boing is a group blogging project focusing on technology, sci-fi and politics. It's one of the world's most read blogs.

- Declan Cashin