Blogging has peaked and Irish blogs have come into their own too late in the day. What do bloggers think?

"So the traditional media in the US have done the old embrace and smother on blogging. I think it will be a lot harder to do that here. One loudmouth could easily make a difference . . . In the political arena we do seem to be missing an 'edge'. Most of the political blogs I read could easily just be normal journalism. I'd love to see something with much more bite. And I don't mean 'blah is a bollox', I mean going for the jugular on a daily basis, pseudonymously if necessary."

- Conoroneill.com

"Over this side of the Atlantic, the limelight is on the way the UK press has adapted to blogging - and (more importantly) audio and video podcasting. In Ireland, there is no limelight. Why? because there's nothing to shine it on." - fmk

"We are commenting on the day to day issues and on Irish life from the view of the Irish people.

"To the Irish diaspora abroad, this must be rich pickings. They no longer just get news on the latest tribunals or whatever - they get the local issues, the local opinion and the local voice." - Grandad

". . . there is little doubt that blogs will continue to shape and influence how people receive their information about the world. But on a more macro level, blogs are also about creating communities, sharing information and perspectives from the first person to the second person . . . without intermediaries. - JC Skinner

"I regularly speak at business events and in the order of 70 per cent of attendees, when asked, have not come across blogs." - Krishan De

"Anything that gets away from the present media perspective has to be a good thing. All national newspapers, radio and television are written by people who live in Dublin, for people who live in Dublin. This is a recipe for mediocrity and parochialism, and it ignores the two-thirds of the population who live elsewhere."

- Block the robber

". . . bloggers should (in my opinion) be ploughing their own furrow ever more tenaciously. 'Limited appeal' (after all) is no bad thing and nothing to be ashamed of. What we need in the Irish blogosphere is not a gang of fresh recruits for the Mainstream Media Mills, but rather a dynamic, playful and confident avant-garde!" - Fústar

"The mainstream press and broadcast media tends to be a free photocopying service for party press releases. Irish bloggers engage with and challenge party positions in way rarely seen in the mainstream media." - Green Ink

"Irish bloggers disillusion themselves slowly: they are mainly hypnotically indebted to their country's heritage. Above all they are not curious enough. But they don't realise this. They live in their own world. And put up with arguing among siblings, as if that was the only way to life. They are not ambitious. Too often they fail to push the boundaries of their language into new places and fresh shapes. In a nutshell, Irish bloggers are a conservative bunch." - Omaniblog

"Outside of people who are involved in blogging in some form, I've never had a single conversation with someone about a blog. Most of the population wouldn't have a foggiest what you're talking about or simply aren't interested and many of them are people who are quite tech savvy. There's a lot of back-slapping and navel-gazing that goes on in blogging as a whole but especially in Irish blogging."- BIF

"Every time someone realises their blogging makes a difference either to others or themselves (personal development etc) then that's a revolution. Millions of personal revolutions is what blogging has delivered. It also means revolutions are always happening as people start and stop blogging. The timing doesn't really matter."- Damien Mulley

"Revolutions, by definition, do not peak."

- Conn O Muineachain

The above are extracts of blogging responses to the question put up on Haydn Shaughnessy's blog: www.mediangler.com/2007/02/

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