Live Blogging: In Principle, in Practise in Action!

Live blogging is a fantastic Journalism tool for making a running commentary of an event in motion. It is used for sporting events, conferences, news feeds or just about anything that is happening now and wants continuing coverage. For the audience or reader it is great for when you can't actually be at the event and want to know a play by play of what is going on.

The Guardian were early adopters of live blogging and have been live blogging minute by minute sporting events since 1999. In 2005 the Guardian used live blogging to report the 7/7 bombings in London. Today many of the major news organisations produce live blogging in some shape or form. There are many platforms available to do this, either through current blogs owned by the news organisations or through third party platforms such as, Twitter, Scribble Live, CoverItLive, Blyve and Liveblog Pro. These platforms enable Marketers, Media or Event managers to tailor their 'live blog' for a specific event. Additionaly plans wiill be made to advertise the live blog facility in advance of the event in order to attract an audience.

I attended a religions conference at the beginning of October this year and while I usually watch and make notes I had never before considered following any social media feeds during the event. This year I thought I would give it a try. I used two platforms to see what was being said during the weekend conference, Twitter, which was updated using #ldsconf hash tag by hundreds of different users and LDS Smile, a blog run by an individual who often posts inspiring and uplifting thoughts, both on their blog and Facebook and have over 56,000 followers! What I found interesting about following both these live feeds was first, how quickly LDS Smile were able to re-phrase what was being said on screen in 'easy to understand' language. Secondly, how people could actually have something to say, both negative and positive within about a minute of it being said at the conference (my brain doesn't work that fast!).

This was my first real experience of live blogging. So this got me thinking... my experience was from public live blogging and if they can achieve such excellent coverage with thousands of followers, what could the (Journalism) industry accomplish with their professional skills. In the realm of live blogging a Journalist must be quick thinking as they report minute by minute, they must be the editor, curator and Journalist; There is real power in this platform!