CoverItLive

CoveritLive is a web-based service for blogging events in real time, or 'liveblogging'. Developed by a Toronto, Canada-based company of the same name, established in 2007, the application is used extensively by individuals and companies - journalists and media in particular - to provide live commentary on political and industry events, speeches, sport, etc. It was founded by Keith McSpurren who also co-founded Salesdriver.com with Joel Silver.

Company history

In January 2009, CoveritLive secured $1 million in a first round of funding (from seed investor Flagstone Capital and private investor Paul Kedrosky).^[1] In August 2009, California-based Demand Media made a strategic investment and acquired a minority stake in CoveritLive; Demand Media said it would offer services to customers of its Pluck enterprise social media platform, which include Sky News, NPR, USA Today and the NFL.^[2]

CoveritLive has been used to cover events including the May 2010 UK General Election (The Scotsman [1]), the NFL Draft (2010 [2]), American Idol, the 2010 Tour de France (Velo News [3]) and the 2010 FIFA World Cup (during which it claimed 146 million page views in 30 days). However, as with many social media platforms, CoveritLive provides an outlet for numerous individuals and small organizations to share a wide variety of real, virtual and hybrid events.

The service crashed temporarily during 27 January 2010 due to a massive surge of interest in journalists' feeds using CoveritLive to report Steve Jobs' keynote at Apple's launch of its iPad device. Online publications using CoveritLive for this event included MacWorld[4] and MacNN[5].^[3] CoveritLive CEO Keith McSpurren said in February 2010 that CoveritLive is responsible for more than 82 million page views a month.^[3]

In February 2011, CoveritLive was acquired by Demand Media for an undisclosed sum.^[4]

Service features

The browser-based application allows users to post and update content, insert images or video, create polls, provide feedback, and manage Q&A sessions. CoveritLive also archives each session and provides analytics. New posts and updates are refreshed automatically, meaning that readers don't have to manually refresh their browser.

References

1. ^ CoveritLive Picks Up $1 Million Round For Liveblogging Tech - Paidcontent.org - http://paidcontent.org/article/419-coveritlive-gets-1-million-round-for-liveblogging-tech/
2. ^ Hefflinger, Mark (18 August 2009), Digital Media Wire - Pluck Parent Demand Media Takes Stake in CoveritLive - http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2009/08/18/pluck-parent-demand-media-takes-stake-coveritlive
3. ^ ^{a b} Needleman, Rafe (9 February 2010), CNetNews.com, How CoveritLive failed users during iPad unveiling - http://www.zdnetasia.com/how-coveritlive-failed-users-during-ipad-unveiling-62061062.htm
4. ^ Demand Media acquires blogging tool CoverItLive - CNET.com"" - http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20038726-36.html

External links

• CoveritLive.com (website) accessed 14 July 2010.