Live Blog - next time, what to change or improve?

JamesPageJamesPage Administrator, Moderator, Director
edited November 2011 in MI6 Headlines & Feedback Posts: 1,380
So we launched the Live Blog for the first time to cover the press conference today. It was the first time we have updated MI6 in real time, beyond writing articles and news stories and publishing them as quickly as possible.

Was it useful?

How would you improve it?

What would you have liked to have seen / done differently?


A few other Bond outfits leaned on Twitter for real-time commentary after we announced the Live Blog, but we figured people might not want their news feeds jammed up, and the Live Blog was there if you were interested, otherwise it wouldn't spam up your social networking feeds too much.

Some of the things I would like to work on for next time would be more frequent, shorter entries -- we were trying to keep things 100% accurate during the press conference, rather than posting up bullet points and quick reactions. Our delay was about 2 minutes. The interactivity wasn't really possible as Twitter was slammed - perhaps a unique hashtag would have worked better? The forums were also over capacity for the majority of the event as we had unprecedented levels of traffic across all services, which hampered the ability to include comments. Live photos were also not possible thanks to the blanket ban on snaps during the PC. But the main site was up for the duration, which was an achievement considering the traffic levels.

Comments

  • Posts: 5,745
    I went to comingsoon.net I believe because they had a plug in that updated in literally real time. I got quoted facts within seconds of each other while they happened, and they were very neat and organized. It scrolled down as the messages popped up, and was clear and easy to follow.

    Unfortunately I do not know the plugin, but I probably got 2x the detail from them than on your page (even though most of it wasn't too important, just the guys observations).

    But I had both up, and have to say was relatively un-moved when I read "official title is SKYFALL"
  • Posts: 1,894
    The forums pretty much went down under the sheer weight of traffic during the press conference, so the live blog was inaccessible for me.
  • Posts: 5,745
    Yea, I was on comingsoon.net and MI6 but I couldn't access the forums. I figured it was traffic. So I went to the announcements page at MI6 vanilla and just refreshed it every so often.
  • JamesPageJamesPage Administrator, Moderator, Director
    Posts: 1,380
    The Live Blog was over on MI6-HQ.com, no link whatsoever to the MI6 Community. The Forums got slammed and went over capacity, but the main site was up the whole time.
  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    Posts: 13,356
    Was it useful?
    Yes.
    How would you improve it?.
    Off the top of my head I can't think of anything to improve. Apart from having the forums and everything else working of course, even the main site was slow at times, though that may be quite a big issue to resolve. At least you've got two years minimum to sort it out. ;-)
    What would you have liked to have seen / done differently?.
    Obviously a live stream but that's very 2008 so maybe nowadays no one does this sort of thing...

    Honestly, did EON put on ban on streaming or something becuase no one had one up anywhere online.
    Some of the things I would like to work on for next time would be more frequent, shorter entries -- we were trying to keep things 100% accurate during the press conference, rather than posting up bullet points and quick reactions. Our delay was about 2 minutes.
    I much prefered the level of detail we were given. For this, a big event, bullet point form would have felt like you were trying to rush things in my opinion. The two minute delay didn't count due to the slower site loading speeds. It was a good few minutes out but I got to info, so all was good.
    The forums were also over capacity for the majority of the event as we had unprecedented levels of traffic across all services, which hampered the ability to include comments.
    When everything was due to be in order after last week, did you expect it to be as bad as it was today?

    Thanks again for everything that was done today MI6!
  • Posts: 4,619
    The Live Blog was great, thanks for that @JamesPage ! What I'm really interested in: was this the first time MI6-HQ was invited to a Bond press conference? Were you there when QOS was announced?

  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,264
    Pleased with what I got, I don't think the blog concept needs change. But who knows where technology brings us in two years from now. We may all be wearing a magical helmet that allows the press conference to be beamed directly into our minds. ;))
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