In the last month I applied to Mashable’s Open Web Awards, to become a “blog sponor“, and I was accepted.  This is a great opportunity to participate in a large community of bloggers and to get your blog noticed among the millions of others on the internet.

The Open Web Awards is only in its second year, but the first year saw over 250,000 votes and had over 50 internationl blog sponsors.  It had a big turn-out of competitors such as Facebook, Digg, Google, Meetup, Twitter, Netvibes, woot!, Last.fm and Mahalo.  I can only suspect that it will be 10 times larger this year than it was last year.

What Is The Open Web Awards?

Right from Mashable’s own website, the Open Web Awards is labeled as:

The only multilingual international online voting competition that covers major innovations in web technology. Through an online nominating and voting process, the Open Web Awards recognizes and honors the top achievements in 26 categories. This year, we’re partnering with over 100 blog partners, Poll Daddy for extra security and ease of voting and extending the nominations period and voting rounds for greater participation.

Becoming An Open Web Awards Blog Partner

Becoming a blog partner is as simple as clicking here, filling out the application form, and waiting on a reply from Adam Hirsch to let you know if you fit the criteria and are accepted.

What Are The Criteria?

• Must have a readership of more than 50 RSS Subscribers
• Must be able to post 1 to all of the category Nomination and Voting Widgets
• Must be able to meet deadlines during the timeframe for posts

What Are The Benefits?

Each blog partner receives:

• Logo and Link on OpenWebAwards.com
• Logo in select Open Web Awards related posts
• One Vote Per Category to decide the “Blogger’s Choice” Winners

Mashable is accepting over 100 blog partners this year, so make sure you signup to become an Open Web Awards blog partner today!  It’s FREE!

Let me know if you’ve signed up as a partner in the comments below.