sinéad's lifestream

I was quite literally speechless on Saturday night when I heard I was a joint winner for Best Technology Blog at the Irish Blog Awards. I grabbed the fantastic Made In Hollywood “winner” tombstone (celebrating the death of blogging of course) as I was happier to prance away with that and let 3 time nominee, first time winner, Pat Phelan take the trophy home – a really well deserved winner. Though admittedly I’m looking forward to my own trophy making its way home.

In the past year my blog has transitioned from being considered a personal blog to a technology blog, but honestly I don’t think I could ever really separate the two. Since a really young age technology has been an integral part of my daily life and this blog has been my outlet for my passion for all things technology related, especially in the last year what with the publication of my blogging research,  subsequent end of my college course on Cyberpsychology and search for related employment.

I’m completely unable to express my passion for technology during my current full time job and if it wasn’t for blogging I imagine that passion might have wavered. I’m extremely thankful for blogging because of this and also because it has brought me to incredible events like the Irish Blog Awards and allowed me meet so many wonderful people, like the gorgeous ladies in the photo below.

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The Irish Blog Awards finalists list was published last night and I’m delighted to see so many familiar and deserving blogs and bloggers having made it to the final judging round. Next weekend in Galway is going to a lot of fun. I’m pleased to report that my own blog made it to the finals, in the “Best Technology Blog/Blogger” category. The full list of finalists in this category are below, as you’ll see the competition is incredibly tough and I’m proud to be put along side these amazing blogs/bloggers. Thanks to Bitbuzz who are sponsoring the category and thanks to Damien Mulley for organising another piss up awards.

Best Technology Blog/Blogger

– Sponsored by Bitbuzz

• The Gaming Liberty
• Pat Phelan
• Matt Johnston
• Sinead Cochrane
• Web2Ireland

Thanks to Steph for the graphic/badge.

The Dublin Community Blog posted the list of winners from last night. Here it is with links too.

I definitely think that Grannymar & Head Rambles (joint winners) deserved the award for Best Personal Blog, which was the category that this blog was nominated in. I’m also really glad that Sabrina Dent won Best Designed, because her blog is gorgeous! Well done to everyone.

Robin Blandford (winner of Best Irish Technology Blog) posted some pictures of the actual award, and it’s so very pretty.

The Irish Blog Awards are on tonight, good luck to everyone nominated. If you can’t make the physical event in the Alexander Hotel there is a Second Life party (formal attire please!) in the Dublin sim, in St. Stephen’s Green. This is tonight at 7.30pm. A big part of me (the shy part!) wishes I could go to the virtual party instead!

Kudos and thanks to Damien Mulley for applying his many skills to this.

As some of you might have noticed I was nominated for a blog award (best personal blog), and I’ve been shortlisted. Overall this is very surprising – firstly, because I didn’t think I had many readers as I don’t get that many comments, just lots of lurkers! (maybe I should start using feedburner?), secondly because within that longlist there are many other blogs that I would have chosen over my own. I’m very flattered indeed, many thanks to the judges and Damien. Good luck to everyone nominated.

The shortlist of nominees for the Best Personal Blog

• Irish Flirty Something*
• Grannymar*
• The Biopsy Report
• Conortje
• Lozenge
• Fatmammycat.com
• The Waiting Game
• The Swearing Lady*
• Hangar Queen
• Lebanon an Irish Experience
• Head Rambles*
• That Friday Feeling
• Avoiding Life

(*personal favourites of mine)

I’ve been blogging for a few years, but only started writing regularly over the last year. Thus, the Blog Awards has really piqued my interest this year (and not just because of the nomination!). For me the great thing about the Blog Awards is how so many non-blogging people that I know have started taking an interest (once coerced into visting the site!), and this is because the longlists provide a very interesting and quality insight into the Irish Blogosphere. For those of you reading that are unfamiliar with the many brilliant irish blogs out there, might I suggest visiting each of the nominees listed on Awards.ie and maybe even voting for your favourite once voting commences.

The Irish Blog Awards take place on March the 1st at the Alexander Hotel, and I’m pleased to say that I’ve been nominated in the “Best Personal Blog” category, thank you to whoever that was. This particular category has a very long list of nominees – including some personal favourites of mine (UnaRocks, Red Mum, Irish Flirty Something, Swearing Lady etc.,) and some very big hitters (Maman Poulet, Grandad, etc.,).

Please do check out all the nominees and categories over on Awards.ie