In deciding how to conduct these awards we thought long and hard about how the winners would be decided. The web is a participatory medium and we definitely wanted the readers of blogs to be involved – and we’ve been asked why categories aren’t decided by a public vote.

The reason lies in how awards such as The Booker Prize or the Mercury Music Prize are judged. While the public will definitely have an opinion and help shape the nominations, they won’t be the deciders. We thought this was the best way to conduct the Wales Blog Awards – let people nominate, but put together a panel of bloggers to make the decision.

This hopefully means the blogs will be judged on their merits, rather than just on who has the biggest readership/friends/family who can vote for them.

In future years we may introduce a voting element, or a ‘People’s Choice’ awards – but for this year we’re relying on the judging panel to make the right decision. Of course the beauty of the web is that you can tell us all in the comments just how wrong we were with our decisions.