ellybabes: Blogging the Election - Liveblogging the day

So why are we here today? Why blog the election?

The Blogging the Election Conference kicked off today in the Digital Exchange with Richard Delevan (Business Editor of The Sunday Tribune) posing that question to the crowd. I answered with, to me, the most simplistic answer – “because we blog everything”. But really, why bother? he asked – what influence will bloggers really have?

Richard then went on to talk about how the Netroots Campaign has had such a great effect in America, and how has been used heavily in the US Senate campaign race between Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman for the Connecticut Senate seat.

So why is Ireland different? For a number of reasons, one of the primary ones being that Ireland is known for being a place where everyone knows everyone else - you engage an Irish person that you have just met in conversation and within 10 mins you can find some common link, some person that you both know... IMHO, this is something that has quite an effect within the irish blogs population - after attending BarCampIreland last weekend, I saw quite a surge in traffic to my blog, and I'm expecting something similar again this weekend...

Another major reason is something that is never far from the mind of Damien Mulley, which is the lack of broadband penetration within Ireland - a large part of the population goes onto the internet via dialup and (usually) unless you have a fast connection you are less likely to spend time browsing around finding new content, you rely more on the major sites and links that people send you...

OK, this is just the first installment of today, more to come and I'll be joined by Bernie Goldbach for a few guest posts...