CoverItLive for Journalists: City Uni Event

Tiers are based on how often you use it and audience sizes.

25m page views in recent months. Page views are understated – you go to that page and never refresh. 

People have raised that as a problem. The pendulum is swinging away from page views towards reader engagement, Keith suggests. That’s monetised in a different way.

Odd use cases: signing day in the States, where people declare which universities they’re going to, the G20 protests here, NFL draft, earnings conference calls. 

[Matthew Ingram’s experimenting](http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2009/04/30/the-benefits-of-a-live-blog/) getting a lot of praise.

Pure Q&As are big – for example, Hollywood directors. The comment management is really important for that.

If you’re just using it for a comments board, you’re missing the point. If you treat it as being clubby, you cap the potential use. It’s not a chat tool. Democratisation of content doesn’t need to be 24/7. There’s a value in good writers. The software is more like a talk show than a collaboration tool. Sometimes realtime coverage is better than other situations.

Don’t feel you have to show all comments. Just add the ones that bring value. Otherwise, you get gobbledegook – people fighting with each other. “Go to rooms like that, as see how long before you want to put a revolver in your mouth.”

Meebo rooms are for pure peer-to-peer chat. This is for more broadcast situation.  

In a “thousands of comments” situation, people often repeat themselves. Just publish a representative sample. “I’ve seen 63,000 of these things – trust me. Craft content out of this.”

Now accepts things like Qik – we they add their own video? They allow most live streaming type sites. When appropriate they defer to third party apps that can be integrated into CoverItLive. 

The software will evolve as the needs of journalists evolve – but it also needs to stay easy to use. “Getting money out of newspapers right now is a minor miracle” – one reason for keeping the company really small (4 people). 

And…we’re done.