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CoverItLive raises the bar on live blogging with killer new features

by Tris Hussey on March 14th, 2008

As I arrived in Vancouver on Wednesday, I got an email from Keith of CoverItLive giving me a heads up on some new features that are now live…and these features rock!

If you’re a CIL user you might have received the email from Keith, but if you didn’t here are the new features:

New Features:

• Quick Launch:  If you are covering breaking news or just need to start live blogging ASAP, Quick Launch (in the My Account section) let’s you launch a live blog immediately.  Just paste the Viewer Window on your blog and start.
• Panelist/Producer (multi-authored live blogging):  A much requested feature, “Can I have more than one author on my live blog?”.  Now, it’s as simple as sending an email to your Panelists (people who will ONLY write commentary) or Producers (people who can do everything you can do including approve reader comments and launch multimedia).  Very useful for live blogs with big readership or for running a Q&A session.
• ‘Always Allow’ Reader Comments:  Another popular request was to allow some reader comments to automatically publish without moderation.  Great for trusted readers or new readers who have great insights to share with everyone else.  This takes some of the burden off the writer of the live blog.  A maximum of 10 readers can be classified as ‘Always Allow’ per live blog (because more than that, and the live blog will become unwatchable for all of the disjointed commentary).
• Standby Mode:  Instead of launching several different live blogs to cover multi-day or long events, users can now put their live blog into Standby Mode.  This lets them take long breaks and disconnect, then come back any time within 48 hours to continue.  While in Standby, their readers can catch up on what has happened so far.  A great feature for conference attendees or ‘all day sports’ live blogs.  When you combine this feature with the new Panelist feature, round the clock coverage becomes simple.  Standby Mode will also automatically activate if a user has been disconnected for 30 consecutive minutes.
• Edit Completed Live Blogs:  Great for fixing typos or deleting unwanted entries.  Go to My Account/Completed Live Blogs and clean up your completed live blog.  All changes are immediately published in your Instant Replay.
• Download Completed Live Blogs:  For those who would rather store their live blogs locally, go to My Account/Completed Live Blogs and download your live blog for posting on your site.
• Syndication:  Although CoveritLive live blogs could always be syndicated to other sites and blogs, we have never really talked about this feature.  If you have other sites willing to ‘carry’ your live blog, simply give them the embed code (the code you paste on your site) to paste on theirs.  This lets them keep their readers on their own site while opening up your live blog to a wider audience.  Imagine sharing live blogs across a blog network or across multiple newspaper sites.

Chatting with folks at SXSW about CIL–I never pass up a chance to talk it up–some folks didn’t know that you could download the code and others wanted to be able to edit the post later.  Well the editing is there.  The download is there.  The multi-author capabilities, wow, that adds a whole new aspect to live blogging.  Imagine having a group of people live blog the same session or panel.  Talk about a range of perspectives!  I think I have to try this at my next conference.

CoverItLive just keeps raising the bar, imho, for live blogging.  Also in the email from Keith is some techie facts that their pure AJAX interface is now augmented with some HTTP streaming so they can handle hundreds of thousands of connections to your live blog (oh I wish I were that popular).

There are hints at the end of the email that they are working on ways to integrate CIL with popular apps and blogging platforms.  I’m hoping for a WP and WLW plugin to make the Quick Launch even quicker.

One of the misconceptions that I think people have about CIL and live blogging is that you have to write short bits, stream of consciousness blogging.  Totally not true.  I mix it up when I blog with stream of consciousness and more thoughtful things.

At SXSW blogging the online advertising panel, I found another really cool part of CIL…questions for the panel/speaker from readers!   Sam Harrelson asked several questions through CIL that I was able to ask for him, and type back the answers.

Keith was keeping the future plans close to his vest, but I’m sure I can drag something out of him soon enough.

What are you waiting for to try CIL?

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