The nominations for the 2006 Weblog Awards have begun. While a million votes have been cast in the previous three years, it seems the Awards are headed to new levels of notice and participation this year. This reflects the general uptick in the visibility of blogging overall and media coverage of the Awards.

The Awards have expanded to cover a wide range of categories, not simply the “best” blog. Categories are based on topics and visitor rankings. Some are pretty creative and they cover ground from military to LGBT and everything in between. They also include international divisions.

I think the coolest thing about the Awards is that the entire thing is also carried out on a blog. Nominations are given in the comment section for each category. Now this is something the Oscars should consider! How cool is it to see nominations and then immediately see the blogosphere’s reaction to it? Especially since you are allowed to nominate yourself. Some reactions to nominations are entertaining in their own right, and highly colorful. Hopefully it won’t get too vicious. (Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I hope it will.)

Seriously, I will be very interested to see if media coverage of all of this influences blogging trends. For me, finding the blogs I like has always been a matter of (virtual) word-of-mouth. I wonder how some sort of well-publicized recognition will affect which ones people view based on status or the content bloggers provide to court votes.