Today, all of us expect immediate access to news and major events, which is why this year’s Democratic and Republican National Conventions will be more digitally connected than ever.  The technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, and when you look at how it will be used, you can see why the conventions have made technology and connectivity a major priority this election year.

The immediacy and reach of the Internet has resulted in an explosion of blogs and, more importantly, their influence. Because of this, there will be more bloggers at this year’s political conventions than ever before, with the DNC quadrupling the number of credentialed bloggers at the event, and the RNC increasing their blogger presence almost 10-fold.

Gone are the days when bloggers were just considered opinions – now they are valued almost, if not as much as members of traditional media!  Social media doesn’t stop at bloggers; sites like MySpace and Facebook are connecting followers to each other and to the candidates (both presidential candidates have their own profiles on both sites), and micro-blogging sites like Twitter will encourage minute-by-minute postings about the events.

When you look at the difference in technology from the last political conventions, consider this: YouTube didn’t even exist at the last conventions four years ago. In the 2008 presidential election, seven out of the 16 presidential candidates announced their candidacies on YouTube, and the YouTube debates garnered an astounding amount of attention.

You can bet that at this year’s conventions, the YouTube clips will cover everything from the convention floor to the candidates’ speeches, and because of the technology focus of both events, the clips will be posted virtually in real time. Then there’s streaming video, which will give followers of the campaigns unprecedented access to the events.

The connectivity will be there.  How will people take advantage of it? How will you use technology to stay tuned in to the conventions?

- Frank Simanson

Vice President, Product Management 

…if you’re interested in more information about the technology being deployed at this year’s Democratic and Republican conventions, check out the press releases about Qwest at the Democratic National Convention and Qwest at the Republican National Convention.