Cover It Live

Is this a Clickability product? Is it part of a larger package, or can you buy it separately?

 

It's free Johnny. And if your web guy/gal is good enough, they can set it up on your preps page.

I did it once for two days at a wrestling tournament and it was a huge hit. But another set of eyes was huge. There was no way I could have done it all myself. As for football, no freaking way.

 

Even if your web guy/gal sucks they should be able to set it up on your page. All you do is copy and paste the code into your content management system.

 

Like Ray says, free free free.

To follow on my post about McShea in B-lo, here are some transcripts if you want to check 'em out:
June 2 live chat
Niagara Falls hoops -- Class AA regional (on deadline)
Maple Grove hoops -- NY state semifinal (morning game)
Orchard Park football -- state championship game

I'll remember that OP one for a while, because I was reading it on my phone while sitting in the stands at Ralph Wilson Stadium. The Bills game in front of me was so boring (10-3 SF final), I decided Keith's blog would be more interesting ...

 

We'll cover it live!

 

Its free for now, but the CIL site acknowledges they will be charging at some point

It's a great tool - particularly for breaking news stories - but for events, you definitely need a moderator to handle the comments

It is also easy to have your Twitter feeds upload directly into the interface.

 

Thanks for the idea. I'm going to pitch it to the bosses as an alternative to using it from the game. I don't see how it can work in-game, especially since our preps guy covers football games from the sideline (don't ask me how he does it, but he does a dynamite job, so I never question it).

 

Love it, love it, love it. Will be sad once they make us pay for it, but I think it's a great tool for all the reasons here.

Also, it's a good way to keep notes AND blog, as I can do PBP or something in the chat and go over it later. Worked with it a lot for basketball season and will be doing it in football season, too

 

Someone clue me in on this: what's the audience for these blogs, particularly on high school sports?

In my experience, the people who care about the event are either (1) present, (2) listening on radio or (3) have other commitments at that time. Not sitting around their computer having some interactive chat with sportswriters.

I've really seen in-game blogs or glogs that added anything to any event I was watching. It's usually even worse than the guy doing color commentary on the broadcast.

I've done plenty of games on radio that I've also written stories for, so I don't see how doing this would be much different from a practical standpoint. I'm just curious what the audience is for it.

 

It depends on your readership and what kind of commitment you make to build a chat presence. You can't expect everyone to show up and chat the first time.

 

It depends on the event.
Are you going to get a big audience for your typical high school prep game? Probably not.
But if the venue is far away, and it's a team that has captured the interest from more than the usual suspects (students, parents, really dedicated alums) then it is absolutely worth it.
My audience trusts me more than the radio guys. They understand their biases, and limitations. And, for whatever reason, I am seen as more of an "expert" than they are, despite the fact they've been in this market far, far longer.
I've had situations where I can get 1,000 people to click "Watch now." To me, that's huge. Some would argue that a 1,000 people is not worth your time. But to that, I say this — what else are you doing online that brings in a 1,000 people?
The solution to saving newspapers is probably not one new idea. It's 20 of them. Or 50 of them. If we can do 25 things that each bring in a 1,000 people, that's going to make an impact. Or at least a dent. And it's better than sitting around and waiting to die.

 

Hey, I'm all for it. Anything is worth a shot, and I've found live game chats to be pretty unintrusive, and actually a little fun.

I just can't shake this notion: On a really good day, as you say, you might bring 1,000 sets of eyes to your web site. That is awesome. That is a really good day.

Our paper sells 200,000 copies a day, and apparently we're all going out of business.

I've never been accused of being a forward-thinking financial wizard. I just can't understand if a 200,000 circulation paper charging print ad rates can't make it, how we can expect a web site drawing substantially fewer viewers than that and charging a cheaper web rate for advertising has a shot in hell.