By Izah Morales

The Philippine Blog Awards (PBA) is set to recognize more blogs this year, organizers said.

This year’s PBA will give away 36 awards under 3 divisions, namely Best Blog, Best Single Blog Post, and Special Awards divisions, and 15 categories, organizers said. Last year, PBA only gave 15 awards to local bloggers.

“This shows that the Filipino blogging community is actually growing,” said PBA vice head and chief executive officer Juned Sonido in an interview.

For this year, a total of 600 nominees joined the PBA. About 5 to 10 nominees will be judged per category.

Blogs will be generally judged based on content design and usability, but the Best Blog Post division will be evaluated based solely on content, organizers said.

Judges were tapped to choose the winning blogs. However, bloggers and readers are given the chance to vote for their favorite blog under the Bloggers’ Choice Award category.

According to a Universal McCann study, the Philippines has the highest growth rate in “blogging engagements” in 3 years. The country has also exceeded the global average for blog readership – 72.8 percent in 2008 –growing form 33 percent in September 2006 to 64 percent in June 2007, and 90.3 percent in May 2008.

With more blogs becoming more “mainstream,” Sonido said bloggers should now be more responsible for what they write. “Each blog is a representation of your idea on the internet. It’s like a kaleidoscope of ideas,” he added.

The Philippine Blog Awards is scheduled on September 21, 2008 at the One Esplanade.

CONGRATULATIONS to Benj Arriola, who has made every Filipino proud by winning the SEO World Championship.

Not only that, but he will bring home the first prize — a brand new Citroen C2.

Here’s an excerpt from Abe’s blog entry:

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I WAS having a chat several days ago with Minic Rivera over iChat video. We were “showing off” local junk food (Minic resides in the US) — Chippy for him and Oishi Potato Chips for me. I won when I showed him my Burger Machine Sans Rival. We were basically reminiscing about the good things that we Pinoys love — and take for granted here in the motherland. In between snacks, Minic opened my eyes to a new project he was developing called The Pinoy.TV, which launched today.

The Pinoy.TV is a monthly online video festival based on themes that pertains to Filipinos and the Philippines, in general.

You do not have to be a filmmaker to join. As long as you have a story to tell and share with us about the theme, then we want you. No acting is necessary. We want real videos from real stories.

[Read the rest of this entry »]