The Rise Of The Liveblogging Phenomenon

Posted on 02 April 2008

It’s amazing how fast information travels nowadays. With rapid adoption rates of multi-function, browser-ready devices like the iPhone becoming a norm, people are blogging constantly - Liveblogging, a term that I’ve seen used on tech-centric blogs like TechCrunch and Read Write Web, describes the act of blogging an experience as it’s happening. I didn’t notice how common a phenomenon liveblogging was until going to ETech - during keynotes and presentations people would hold up their iPhones take a picture of the slide and then quickly email it to themselves and (presumably) post it to their blogs, even before the next slide was up. Talk about rapid exchanges of information - imagine a TechCrunch blogger posting in real time to 753K RSS readers around the world. Recently, I’ve seen tons of “liveblogged” posts on tech blogs - yesterday’s post on CrunchGear titled Live from the CTIA Wireless 2008 Keynote is a perfect example of the Liveblogging phenomenon - you can even see people’s heads in the photos showing the slides. Of course, along with people photoblogging using their iPhones, they’ve also got their laptops open, Twittering and emailing at the same time. Doesn’t anyone just listen anymore? You can be damn sure that tons of new apps for the iPhone (and similar devices) are going to focus on streamlining these kinds of activities.

Here’s a video I found on YouTube that shows just how easy it is to Blog in real time on an iPhone. For those of you wondering, no I don’t have one, and yes, I do want one. Badly. :)