Damien Mulley

I put a little list together of people to watch and to subscribe to in 2007. This hasn’t been researched greatly or anything like that but I thought I’d share who I thought had the potential to do something interesting in 2007. Given the election is on this year, many have a political slant.

Simon McGarr

From his writings on Tuppenceworth and his work with Digital Rights Ireland we already knew of him but he has also branched out with the Paper Round project which shows just how amateur the press pros are and how unoriginal too. The star of the Blogging the Election conference later in the year where he answered questions on the legal rights of bloggers, everyone just wanted him to talk and talk and talk. A natural with any audience I have to say. Leviathan is merely the start. Simon then ended 2006 by unveiling the VoteTube project. I think this could with luck become a very useful source during the 2007 election and for years afterwards. The only issue for Simon in 2007 is the arrival of a baby McGarr to keep him busy. Time will tell how well he can juggle it all.

The Cedar Lounge lads

The 2007 election is probably going to be the most talked about event for 2007 in Ireland and intelligent analysis of the spin and the politics is a must. The bloggers from the Cedar Lounge seem to bring political discussion up a notch but at the same time clear some of the fog that you might experience when trying to figure out what is actually happening in the political arena. When you read what they have to say it is as if your substitute teacher for Physics turns out to be Richard Feynman.

Piaras Kelly

Only just moved to Edelman, one of the few PR people in Ireland to blog. (You have to wonder why) I certainly don’t agree with Piaras on a lot of subjects but he does have a keen ability to spot some new trends and see things in a different light to me. He’s a maven in his area and is someone to keep an eye on. I demand he blog more though. (In the same fashion as Withnail demanded booze.)

Red Mum

Not sure will she de-cloak or not but I would not be surprised if her seriously good photography matched with her wonderful writing we see on her blog and column will get her another gig. Maybe she’ll leave her day job and get employed as a roving reporter/photoblogger for an Irish news organisation.

Cian O’Flaherty

The champion of the blogging the election conference and the one who was running around keeping everything ticking over during the event. It was a fantastic event and I was glad to work with him at it. He’s got the brains, the charm and the wit to do really well. He’s been dead quiet with college work since the conference but I have no doubt with the election coming up that he has a few pokers in the fire that he’ll be making use of. I expect to see him running around the election trail “live blogging” and maybe we’ll see people wearing IrishElection.com windbreakers during some of the political news conferences.

Pat Phelan

Moving completely away from politics now. One of the new bloggers on the block in 2006. The biggest exporter of “People’s Republic of Cork” t-shirts to Silicon Valley. Pat is a genuinely decent guy and strives to point out the good in everyone. His Roam4Free venture will hopefully get going in 2007 and it should shake up mobile communications for those people on the move a lot.

Bernie Goldbach

He has made a massive contribution to the podcasting community in Ireland and if there is one blog to inform you of what is new in 2007 it’ll probably be Bernie. I’m surprised he has not picked up a videocamera and become the Irish scoble.

Two Richards and Dick

Richard Delevan is doing very well in his role of Business Editor in the Sunday Tribune and Richard Waghorne is doing well in the Irish Daily Mail and Irish Mail on Sunday role. We then have Dick O’Brien working in Business Plus. I may be mistaken, but they are all new enough to their roles and should be settling in now and ready to make things more fun. All three I’d consider to be opinion drivers and with their strong blogging backgrounds and great consumption of blogs, they could very well bring views from bloggers into their publications.

The teeny tiny startups that could and will

They might be one man or two man operations mostly but I think the startups like those of Walter Higgins from Sxoop Technologies, Joe Drumgoole from Putplace.com and Conor O’Neill from LouderVoice.com are what we will see more and more of. An army of one man armies in the tech world. Thanks to the flat world and abdundance of resources online, a startup can be run from anywhere with a broadband connection. It would be great to see a few of these become successes in 2007 and inspire those in college or about to complete their studies that their future does not necessarily have to be in giant companies like Sun or IBM or wearing a shirt and tie while writing boring code for a bank.

The unknown blogger

I think we might see a few new bloggers in 2007. Both anonymous and named. I think some might even be journalists from large publications who might hang up their boots and totally immerse themselves in this new way of communicating. I think having someone with a lot of experience with traditional media helps to engage with an audience and can teach us bloggers a thing or two. Such is the case with Blogorrah that went from nowhere to pissing off Ray “Mr. Nice” D’Arcy on the national airwaves. Wouldn’t it be fun if a new blogger dished all the gossip on Bertie but did it from a very safe distance?

This entry was posted on Monday, January 1st, 2007 at 2:06 am and is filed under blogs, irishblogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.