Scribblelive: Easy it is, CoverItLive it is not
May 26, 2008 by Tris Hussey
Filed under Business
Last week at Mesh08, Scribblelive joined the ranks of web-based live blogging tools. Interestingly, this one is also out of Toronto like CoverItLive. While, granted, this is brand new and there a more features coming like a widget to embed, I don’t share Download Squad’s (ScribbleLive: Liveblogging doesn’t get much easier – Download Squad) or Techcrunch’s (ScribbleLive: Two Guys In Canada Launch Sweet Liveblogging Platform) assessment that it is better than CIL.
Like CIL, Scribblelive is web-based and is easy to get started with your live blog. You can add additional authors and because it’s AJAX it does seem a bit more responsive, however I just don’t see it as the next shiny thing or the second coming of live blogging.
I’ve done a ton of live blogging in the past three plus years. It’s something I’ve done with a wide variety of tools, online, offline, web-based. When I first looked at CIL, I wasn’t convinced (I’m still waiting for the AIR app, btw), but I was won over. So why not Scribblelive?
It just seems too simple.
Now here’s what I’d like. A live blogging tool that bridges between CIL, Scribblelive, and an offline editor. Something that let’s me post quickly, through the web or AIR app, but also uses XML-RPC to post right to my blog at a set interval (every 5 mins if there are updates). I’d like to be able to set categories and tags. I like the polls and live commenting that CIL has. Media sharing is interesting but generally I’m taking scads of pictures and posting to Flickr, so maybe putting a Flickr stream on there.
Hope I’m not asking too much. Perhaps someone could just whip something up for me.
@Tris: Thanks for the review! I read somewhere that Canadians are always ranked near the top for communication technologies because of the spread-out nature of our country, so maybe that explains it :)
We have taken every effort to be as simple as possible (on the surface – there’s definitely some power under the hood), and bring together people to cover a live event. From inviting people to blog with you, to “Feature” pages that highlight all the liveblogs at a particular event, it’s important to us to build a community, while being a kickass liveblogging platform.
Over the next few weeks we’re going to build out ScribbleLive as much as possible (for 2 guys with no startup money whatsoever), from increasing our capacity, to an embed feature, to full Twitter integration. I hope you’ll continue to follow our progress, and hopefully we’ll win you over one day ;)
Cheers!