Over at Scottish Roundup, I have written the introductory article about the Scotblogs awards. One or two people had suggested to me that it would be good for Scottish Roundup to run a blogging awards scheme, and after testing the idea out on a few bloggers it was agreed that it would be a good idea.

But it is not intended to be a glorified back-slapping extravaganza. It is to be a celebration of blogging following what has been a difficult end to the year for some Scottish blogs.

It is also intended to be a way of discovering new blogs. Without a doubt, the most difficult aspect of running Scottish Roundup is trying to find new blogs. If you are pressed for time (and who isn’t?), it is easy to keep on featuring the same blogs week after week — and Scottish Roundup fell into that trap.

This is a conscious effort to turn that tide. For that reason, self nominations are encouraged. In turn, I am hoping that this will encourage more people to nominate blogs for the regular weekly roundup.

I am still looking for two or three more panellists to help out on the awards — so please get in touch if you’re up for it. Any help on what the categories should be would be much appreciated too.

The nominations phase will end on 13 January, and voting will end on 27 January. The winners will be unveiled soon afterwards.