Top politicians pay homage to king of bloggers

The Guardian has travelled to Las Vegas to see just how influential political bloggers are becoming - or have become!

In 'Top politicians pay homage to king of bloggers' they write that

"Thousands of bloggers gathered last week in the Riviera to exchange ideas, debate and plot their steady takeover of journalism and political debate from newspapers, magazines and television.

Anyone who thinks blogging is over-rated should have looked at the guest list of power players who followed the blogging herd to Las Vegas to woo and be wooed by these latest additions to the political scene. Reporters and columnists from all the main newspapers showed up, as did Democratic strategists. Even potential Democrat candidates for the 2008 presidential election pitched up to network and sell their political wares to the online community. Although the event was meant to appeal to all parties, its guest list was overwhelmingly liberal."

One of the mosy influential political bloggers - Moulitsas - now has "more readers than many large American newspapers. His website gets about 20 million unique visits each month, a figure that dwarfs many global media organisations. This has made him a genuine power in politics. His views are sought out by political journalists and he has appeared as a pundit on television."

No longer just a band of nerds, mmm?