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.

CHECK out Toni’s blog Wifely Steps, where she details the never-ending adventures of married life.

Here’s an excerpt from her latest post:

Cute game alert! I’ve been enjoying this game called RayRay Parade because of the cute little characters. It’s a game of logic. The little RayRays run towards the center of the screen in various formations and flash their cute tummies when you solve the puzzle.

Wifely Steps won as Best Home and Living Blog in the 2007 Philippine Blog Awards, where I got to meet her. Hope to talk to you again soon, Toni

ONE of the things that struck me most while covering the Philippine Blog Awards Saturday night was the invocation of Fr. Stephen Cuyos, who is himself a blogger and podcast host.

At times as humorous as it was heartfelt, the good priest’s prayer was a timely reminder of our need to be responsible bloggers. Sure, we blog for different reasons, and as I’ve said many times, including in this blog post for CNET Asia, bloggers are not journalists, and journalists, even though we may blog, are journalists first, with different standards, different values, than bloggers.

This does not mean, however, that we cannot celebrate our differences, and learn from each other. Frankly, the danger I see now in everyone’s  mad rush to become bloggers, and of companies, politicians and other groups to court the favor of bloggers, is that people may no longer see the need for objectivity, or learn to distinguish press releases from real stories.

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HERE’S the list of Philippine Blog Awards winners in the major award categories:

Podcast – Happy Slip

Photo Blog – Senor Enrique

Fashion and Lifestyle – Bryanboy

Sports – Who Rides Vespa?

Business — Reflections of a BizDriven Life

News and Media — Inside PCIJ

Sociopolotical — Philippine Commentary

Home and Living — Wifely Steps

Entertainment — Retzwerk

Travel — Ivan About Town

Tech — Kilat: The Cybercafe Experiments

Personal — Misteryosa.com

And the special category awards winners are:

• Far from Neutral for best blog design
• Kwentong Tambay for best OFW blog
• Blu3zin3 for best Free Custom Theme
• iPAP for best plugin/extension blog

Blogger’s Choice Award winner: Market Manila

THE FINALISTS for the Philippine Blog Awards have finally been unveiled.

The complete list of finalists for the main categories can be found here. The finalists for the special awards can be found here.

The Philippine Blog Awards will be held this 31st of March 2007 at Podium 4, the RCBC Plaza Auditorium in Makati City.

HI, I’m a blog addict….

I just love saying that now that Pam Pastor has officially joined us. Welcome Pam.

Okay, the list of nominees for the main categories of the 2007 Philippine Blog Awards is out.

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HERE’S the video interview I conducted with Abe Olandres and Jayvee Fernandez, who talk about the Philippine Blog Awards that will be held at 5 p.m. on March 31 at Podium 4, RCBC Plaza Auditorium in Makati City.

THAT’S pro blogger Abe Olandres (center), more popularly known in the blogosphere as Yuga, having coffee with INQUIRER.net editor in chief JV Rufino (right) and INQUIRER.net interactive media consultant and b5media.com technology channel editor Jayvee Fernandez.