It's navel-gazing.

It's just a variation on the theme of the 2000 conventions: "Oh My God, The Conventions Are Wired For The Internet!" As I recall, this was also billed as a revolution on the scale of when television first covered the Conventions. And I'm sure that whatever is new in 2008 will be billed similarly.

But how much of this is the Democrats trying to be seen as 'on the leading edge' of Al Gore's Invention?

InstaGlenn,a few months ago, pointed out a comparison made by John Markoff between Blogdom of today and CB of the 70's... (funny thing; I drew that comparison myself not so very long ago...)

One thing Glenn doesn't speak to, is the number of pols who latched onto that phenom, who in trying to affect the poeple actually ON the band, ended up looking like total idiots.

Pols of most stripe will usually try to latch onto whatever's popular, in an effort to grab a part of the spotlight. Blogs, alas, are no different.

When Blogs are still being used at such events 10n years from now, you may have me convinced, Dan. As it is, it's just political BS, trying to latch onto a few popular votes.

It isn't that there isn't any information at the convention; there are House and Senate Races, there are perceptions of delegates from swing states;there are platform, policy, strategy discussions. You should not say there is "no news" unless you define "news." The big media make an editorial judgement as to what would be interesting to some maximal portion of their audience. Or what is interesting to themselves.

This is relevant because this year big media has decided that blogs are interesting. And blogs are successful in large part because they focus, to whatever extent they are externally motivated, on a "niche" audience dissatisfied with big media coverage of politics.

Ironical, huh.

Bob, I think you're hitting the nail on the head.

I think the story of bloggers at the 2004 conventions will be one of the great non-stories of the year. Here's why.

With few exceptions, the quality of political blogging is quite poor. One reason for this is the nature of the people doing the blogging: it doesn't always follow that a body with a keyboard, bandwidth, and loads of free time is thereby capable of producing interesting, informative, and accurate insight into our political system.

But even those (like Drezner) who can walk the walk are limited by an even more profound problem: the inherent limitations of the medium. Most blogging is, by design, off-the-cuff. Unlike mainstream journalism or scholarly writing or legal briefs, blogging is not checked for accuracy or peer reviewed or submitted to a neutral arbiter; blogging, indeed, is not reviewed by anyone until AFTER the author clicks "send." To be sure, the marketplace of readers can chew up a post after it goes up, but the quality of such criticism is often (I'm afraid to say) also quite poor, focussing on the DETAILS of the blogger's post rather than the ideas, context, themes or theses. In the blogosphere, it's quite common -- indeed, expected -- for criticism to come in the form of pithy rejoinders, discrete fact-checking, or ad hominem attacks on other critics. Critics usually ignore the blogger's central argument and focus on factual errors in order to undermine the general thesis. And because the bloggers' posts aren't subject to peer review, there are often many factual errors to exploit. Blogging, I think, invites the laziest sort of commentary.

This is why blogging will never replace the traditional media of criticism and commentary in our culture. It's too snarky, too lazy, and often unpersuasive. In Boston this week, a lot of people will notice the limitations of the bloggers and their chosen medium. Blogging will wilt under the scrutiny and, I think, we won't be hearing too much more about the blogging revolution.

(P.S. This isn't to say that bloggers shouldn't keep it up. I find much of the uninformed, lazy, and mean-spirited commentary in the blogosphere to be pretty fun. Plus, I just love reading the comments of smart people who agree with me on many issues and vindicate my opinions and prejudices -- not to mention having forums available to post my own uninformed opinions. But that's about it: When I want real insight, I read the Economist.)

The conventions mean so little and waste too much money in my view. [I would much prefer seeing that kind of money put into genuine investment to provide long-term good jobs.

Bloggers are at a non-event and going to do what? And, did you take a look at the names and why they are there listed on NY Times list? Range from college kids/or recent grads mostly dems, to the Guy representing Centrists Coalist who said his prioirty was talking to people of faith and is unemployed, and so on.