Live Blogging Just Got More Flexible, Fun — and Profitable

The demand for live coverage has changed the 24-hour news cycle. Whether sporting events or awards ceremonies, natural disasters or national elections, today’s audiences expect real-time coverage of live breaking news.

Live blogs offer a unique second-screen format for interacting with viewers and readers. But until now, media outlets were forced to choose between free live blogging tools with limited functionality or expensive proprietary solutions with overage fees that actually create penalties for high user engagement.

No longer.

Sourcefabric has launched a new LiveBlog.pro web service that combines the advanced functionality of a professional live blogging platform with the intuitive ease of a consumer app. And since this powerful live blog software runs in the cloud, there’s nothing to download or install.

Several subscription options are available for the LiveBlog.pro service. Meanwhile, the Live Blog platform itself remains a free and open source download for those who want to host it on their own servers.

Live Blogging, Better than Ever Before

Live Blog 3.1 delivers a host of innovative new features, including:

• Scorecards: A must-have for sports coverage, scorecards give fans an instant overview of who scored a goal and when.

• Image slideshows: From red-carpet events to natural disasters, a collection of photographs tells a story with more impact.

• Analytics: Knowing your numbers is key. You can keep track of unique visitors to your Live Blog anytime, right from the blog dashboard.

• Native and remote ad options: Now you have two great options for monetising your live coverage. You can include an advertisement from your ad provider in a post and publish it to the timeline, or you can create your own native ads. All you need is some text, an image and a link target.

• Custom post types - free types*: Covering an election? Or a local celebration with its own traditions and highlights? With the custom post feature, you can design blog posts best suited to the event and your coverage.

* Not available for Live Blog Solo and Live Blog Solo Mobile

3 Key Features of Sourcefabric’s Live Blog

Live Blog is built for the way professional journalists want to work, with an eye to maximising the value of live coverage. Standard features include:

• Flexible live coverage timelines, with the option to highlight and pin posts.

• Easy integration of user-generated content like comments and social media posts.

• Eye-catching multimedia options built in, from video embeds to photo slideshows.

Incorporating all different types of content into a blog is effortless, thanks to Live Blog’s intuitive, drag-and-drop functionality.

“Our goal is to not only make Live Blog a powerful storytelling tool, but also easy and fun to use,” said Gideon Lehmann, product owner of Live Blog at Sourcefabric.

Proven in National Newsrooms

dpa, the German news agency and ANP, the Dutch national news agency, as well as Germany’s Zeit Online are among the major news outlets in Europe already using Sourcefabric’s Live Blog platform.

“Sourcefabric has developed a brilliant and super flexible live blogging platform that allows us to experiment with different ways of sharing information in real time,” said Jenni Sargent, managing director of First Draft News. “Being able to embed and pin live video is awesome!"

New users can start their Live Blog subscription with 50% off to start by signing up at liveblog.pro. Subscription pricing plans are tailored to meet the needs of different media organisations. All service plans are backed by the same dedicated and knowledgeable support team, another Sourcefabric differentiator.

Want to know more? Check out all of Live Blog’s great features.