Looking up calendars on Google Products gets you 1,767,345 results. Everyone and their shoe retailer has a calendar and it was only a matter of time before bloggers got on them, too.

Not just any bloggers, either—hot bloggers.

“It’s all Playboy’s fault,” says Jane Porricelli of MomGenerations.com and founder of the phenomenon, referencing the magazine’s list of the web’s hottest chicks.

A believer in equal opportunity, Porricelli wanted to cast the spotlight on hot male bloggers. The contest, which she ran on her personal blog was picked up and promptly torn to shreds by Gawker and its army of cruel commenters, who didn’t have a single nominee on the shortlist.

“That Gawker hit was awesome,” says Porricelli. “I mean, you know if you make it to Gawker, they’re not going to be nice about you (some of the comments about me were harsh!), but you really can’t even pay for that type of publicity.”

“How did they hear about it?” I ask.

“The source link they listed was an article on Mediabistro. As to how they picked it up, I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“Would you say you have a really wide readership?”

“That’s the funny thing, it really has always been mostly moms and dog moms like me,” she admits. “I’m a mommy to two dogs. I write a family product review site with my mom and sister. So that was the first time I had ever gotten a lot of different people to my blog. I had, like, 4,000 unique viewers one day and I almost crapped my pants.”

However it happened that word got out, the resulting surge of interest got the attention of Sarah Morgan, media dilettante and PR maven, who quickly suggested they redo the contest, this time on a massive scale and for both genders.

Now, come August 31, twenty-four winners will be invited to New York for a photo shoot party. Their pictures will appear in Hot Blogger Guys and Hot Blogger Gals 2009 calendars.

On Friday, there were 523 nominations. By today, the count is capped at 800 and the voting has begun! (Interestingly, no one from Nonsociety or the original Playboy list was nominated.)

“I read in the Hot Blogger blog that there was an uproar about the selection of the first male blogger contest—did you feel that way about Playboy’s selection?”

“Yes and no,” Porricelli replied. “It was their contest, after all, so I felt they could pick whoever they wanted, but I didn’t find the pool incredibly diverse. It seemed very pop-culture heavy. I would be interested in knowing how they arrived at their list, though!”

“When I read the descriptions for the original hot male bloggers you had on your blog, I see you talk a lot about inner beauty—there’s a lot about being a good father and a kind person. Do these things define hot for you?”

“Sure, I notice someone’s looks, eyes, body, lips and those things can definitely be hot to me but someone can also be hot on the outside and a total douche on the inside—which is definitely not hot! A sense of humor, intelligence, empathy, kindness, compassion, being adventurous, being a good husband and father—for me, these are the things that ultimately give someone the hotness stamp.”

“I define hot as attracting my attention,” says Sarah Morgan when I ask her later over e-mail. “Whether that’s because of the way you look in your jeans, or the way you make me laugh, or the way you can stand up your side of an argument—ideally it’s all of that, plus something else. The French say ‘je ne sais quoi.’ I prefer to call it ‘really good cologne.’”

Uh oh! Pixels don’t transfer scent!

“Are these things going to be taken into account in the contest?” I ask.

“We’re going to let the readers decide,” Porricelli responds. “It’s up to them, our hands are tied!”

“What’s something you’ve learned from this whole thing?”

“Right before I came up with the hottest blogger idea, I was honestly in one of those I’m-giving-up stages,” Porricelli admits. “I wasn’t feeling all that inspired, stats were down a bit, I just felt that things were at a bit of a stand-still. I remember being in bed that night, thinking, ‘you know, I’m a smart person. I know there’s a big thing somewhere out there for me. I need a chance to hit something out of the park.’ And then I read the article on Techcrunch about the Playboy contest. Immediately, I got to work on the hottest blogger contest and everything that has come from that has been amazing. So I’ve learned to trust my instincts a bit more and just believe that good things will come!”

“And how does your husband feel about you trolling the web for hot bloggers?”

She laughs. “He was fine with it, knowing it was all in good fun, and could possibly bring in lots of traffic for me. He is really, really supportive of my work, even if it drives him nuts, and knows that anything I do is for us in the long run.”

A loving, supportive husband and all the eye candy of the web. Sounds like I’m in the right place.

So what are you guys waiting for? Go vote for me!

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