Has blogging peaked?

February 17, 2007

Haydn Shaughnessy is writing a piece for the Irish Times to coincide with the Irish Blog Awards on 3 March and is looking for opinions on some interesting questions:

The line I’m thinking of taking is Irish blogging has had a great year, expanded in numbers, diversity and talent but has it all come a bit late?
Has blogging in Ireland finally found its feet just as the radical edge of blogging seems to have disappeared?
Can we realistically expect now that Irish bloggers bring about change and if so where?

My own view is this:
“but has it all come a bit late?” For whom? is the answer I would add. Although I’ve had many conversations with people about blogging my experience is that we have a very long way to go in Ireland before blogging as a term is even hovering close to the mainstream. There are so many organisations and interest groups out there who, on the face of it, should be blogging as a direct way of getting their message across but who simply don’t know of the existence of blogging as a methodology. Arts and cultural organisations continue to amaze me at their lack of tech literacy in this regard – what better way of starting a conversation about a piece of contemporary art or dance or theatre piece than by blogging or podcasting? But I can count on two hands the number of organisations who are even getting to grips with the concept. I think there’s also a generational issue at play here too because many of those organisations who could embrace blogging as a useful and productive tool are “too old” and I use that term advisedly. The majority of those who attended the Irish Blog Awards ceremony last year were under the age of 30. Thankfully there are a few of us OAPs out here blogging but until the under 30 generation are the policy makers and key decision makers then blogging will hover out on the edges.
The platform requires an opinion and in an age of “me too” and “cookie cutter culture” there’s no point unless you have a point.