Live-blogging is a strange beast.

That’s what Ivor Tossell’s headline said in yesterday’s Globe.

Live-blogging is definitely not something new, but it does seem to be catching on in Canada.

Tossell said,

It seems like every news organization that has something to prove (and there are none that don’t) has spontaneously taken up the practice of live-blogging. It might have something to do with election season, which has spread live blogs the way the fall weather gives everyone the same cold at once.

Live-blogs are actually micro-blogs, or short status updates that cover an event in frequent intervals.

Seeing how Omar Ha-Redeye’s face is currently plastered from coast-to-coast on television defining the basics of technology in politics, it might be wise to demonstrate aptitude one step ahead of the mainstream media.

Omar will be covering an event tonight, live-blogging using entirely new technology.  Well, the technology has been there for a while, but it hasn’t been used in this way ever before as far as we can tell.

Stéphane Dion is celebrating Canada’s multicultural heritage tonight in Brampton.  He will be introduced by Rt. Hon. Jean Chrétien, and accompanied by Andrew J. Kania, Ruby Dhalla, Omar Alghabra, Hon. Navdeep Bains, Bonnie Crombie, Hon. Albina Guarnieri, Hon. Gurbax Malhi and Paul Szabo.

He will call in updates using SpinVox, which will be coverted to text using Ping.fm and posted as a live-blog.  You can follow him on Twitter, or one of the many other social network services that support mirroring.

There will be a lof of activity on these sites in the next little while, but it will all be over in a few hours.

Earlier today Omar Ha-Redeye attended a gathering of Progressive Bloggers at the home of Vijay Sappani in a Toronto suburb.  They discussed the upcoming Federal election, and the role of blogs as a communication tool.

Omar Ha-Redeye was interviewed by CBC television, who attended the event.  He described his formal education in online communication through Centennial College, and some of his reasons for founding Law is Cool and joining Slaw.  He told viewers how they could easily create their own blogs for free on sites like Blogger, Live Journal, and Word Press.

He also defined some basic online technology terms like blog, Google, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Flickr.  The footage will be used on The National and Susan Ormiston Online in the Blog Buzz segment to help the general public understand these ideas and sites as they come up during the election.