Three years ago myself and a number of other bloggers attended the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis, liveblogged, (It’s amazing to read it back) took photos, video , blogged and encouraged people in attendance to tweet and engage.

We were looked at a bit strangely as we were there for the sake of doing it. OK I was there for some craic too. (Gavin Sheridan now works for Storyful and Mark Coughlan is working in RTE and freelancing.)

This year the Irish Times is liveblogging, shooting video and generally being all interactive. I’m not attending this year as I am ill but I can still keep up to date with what is going on. Other press tweet and take pictures without thinking about it and lots of delegates are commenting online about what is taking place officially and unofficially.

There has been a lot of comment on media diversity, development and survival in Ireland in the past few months, I’ve even been involved in some of it. However I’m still more interested in what we talk about and that we inform ourselves and others than in how we do it. The matter of doing it does interest me. The ‘who is paying for it and how it will be paid for’ question is one which seems has no clear answer yet.

Three years is a very long time in media history. Fair play to the Irish Times for the effort they are putting into covering the event online, I’m sure there are some in Tara Street who question its value like the bloggers who started out a few years ago were questioned when we arrived. I wonder how we will learn about and cover Ard Fheiseanna and other major events in years to come.