Note: This is an updated version of a previous blog post, new features and API projects have been added.
Did you know that 90% of ScribbleLive’s direct customers have switched from another live blogging platform? Most of these moved over from Cover it Live. Many people ask us: what sets ScribbleLive apart?
A key part of our differentiation is how our platform has evolved, expanded and improved based on the needs of our customers and our strategic vision of how the real-time content and live-blogging landscape is changing.
Some of the things we’re excited about include:
Custom All Events Pages: If our generic archive page is not cutting it for you, then this new project should get you excited. You can now create a custom list of all your ScribbleLive events. Since the ‘all events’ page is not in real time, we didn’t use Javascript, we used PHP instead. Here is our ScribbleLive API ‘All Events’ project on Google Code.
Event Start Notifier Widget: This is another open source Javascript API widget – the Event Start Notifier. It will notify your readers when an event is about to start. The notifier will slide on to your website (any page or all pages, the choice is up to you), it will link your readers to the event on your white label site. You can style the notifier to match your branding, control the notifier’s location, and allow users to close the notifier if they aren’t interested in the event.
Recent posts API: Our new Recent posts Javascript widget will allow you to minimize bandwidth costs while supplying your readers with the latest news. You can display it on your homepage and include a link to the full event in your white label. Use this widget as a ‘breaking news’ section on your homepage, add it to your mobile app, or create a multi-column view of your event with different types of content in each column.
Multiple Language Support: As we continue to grow, we want to ensure that our language offerings cater to our diverse clientelle. In addition to publishing liveblogs that appear in multiple languages, reporters will be able to choose which language they’d like the backend interface to display in. Languages we currently support: English, Finnish, French, German, Arabic, Japanese, Danish, Spanish, Croatian, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Turkish.
Moderated Writers: The moderated writer is new level of permission is available that’s ideal for cub reporters or anyone with a penchant for typos. The moderated writer will allow full access to log in, type updates, upload photos, video and audio files but the content they produce will not be published until is it approved by a moderator, editor, developer or administrator.
HTML Pages for SEO and monetization: A key advantage ScribbleLive has over competitors is our white label technology, which generates fully indexable web pages in real time, making it easier for search engines to discover your content. Embedded and widget-based platforms such as Cover it Live hide your content, making it difficult for search engines to index it or, even worse, they index it as part of another company’s brand.
Permalinks: Every ScribbleLive post has its own URL. This makes it easy for people to share that content on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites to drive traffic and advertising revenue. Many commenting systems can also be integrated into these pages to provide a threaded discussion of an individual post to complement your content.
Mobile: According to Pew Research, 47% of survey participants get their news from mobile devices. This includes live coverage. ScribbleLive optimizes its liveblogs so no matter the device, your readers can seamlessly interact with your multimedia coverage. ScribbleLive supports all mobile devices through cost-effective mobile skins, as well as API-based integration for mobile devices.
Flexibility: With ScribbleLive, your team can create multimedia content in a variety of ways — via the web, mobile, email, SMS and voicemail. We offer iPhone, Android and BlackBerry apps to support journalists in the field. ScribbleLive’s API also lets clients build custom apps that push out news and updates to readers in real time.
Workflow: ScribbleLive’s industry-leading LiveArticle feature lets multiple reporters create complete articles that update in real time, making it an ideal tool to summarize the events to date in a breaking story. LiveArticle is just one example of how we’re constantly coming up with new ideas to meet and support the needs of newsrooms and digital reporters.
Syndication: ScribbleLive is the standard for major news agencies such as AP, Reuters, EFE, PA and RIA Novosti. No other content platform offers the ability to syndicate news in real time. ScribbleLive’s syndication capabilities let newsrooms lower the cost of producing content by sharing resources and coverage in real time.
For some companies, real-time is an afterthought or a nice-to-have. ScribbleLive is built for journalists and news organizations that recognize real-time coverage is a core part of the future of journalism. If you share our vision, we’d love to share our capabilities with you. Sign up for a free trial or contact us for more information.
