While I’m looking forward to keeping people up-to-date with my adventures in Japan via Friendfeed next month, it’s arguably much more difficult to keep people updated from the middle of a field at the Glastonbury Festival. After all, Japan may be thousands of miles away but it has 100% 3G coverage and loads of wifi. Plus electricity. And it isn’t really muddy.

One man who’s giving mobile blogging from Glastonbury a go is James Whatley. Not wanting to rely on phones like the one in this picture, he’s got a load of equipment together. His stash includes two Nokia N95s and an E61i as backup, plus a solar charger and lots more. He seems to be quite successful so far. You can find his blog here.

Meanwhile, several charity workers at the festival are using their phones’ GPS to post updates as to what they’re doing around the site. Alfie’s Blog has a map that allows you to follw their movements. As more devices become location-aware in the coming months we’ll be seeing a lot more of this kind of thing. Techcrunch has information on an upcoming iPhone application that uses GPS to allow people to gossip about what’s happening in the area directly around them, for example.

When it comes to an events like Glastonbury, mobile blogging and location services can give an extra dimension to the experience for those of us who can’t make it. We can always watch it on TV, but that’s not quite the same. Most of the BBC’s TV coverage centres on the bands, with only occasional ‘look at the freaks’ packages where they show crusties juggling, people falling in mud and Michael Eavis saying “We’re coping better than we did last year”.

As someone who’s never been to Glastonbury (when I was a student I couldn’t afford it, now that I work I can’t get time off to go) seeing frequent updates from the festival makes me feel a little less left out. Let’s just hope all these mobile bloggers have a plan for what to do when their batteries run out!

[Image Credit: whiper on Flickr]