liveblog

Google launches liveblog tool for Google I/O

Google is looking to get news from its Google I/O conference out as broadly as it can. Company reps told me that "the magical feeling will be bigger and better" at the keynotes Wednesday and Thursday. And to make sure as many people as possible are encouraged to reflect that "magic" out onto the Web, the company is also rolling out a new, simple, embeddable liveblog tool that will also feature the live video streams from the conference.

The new tool, I/O Live, is dependent on Google+ for text input. What you post on … Read more

NPR, Ford sync up with AppLink technology (live blog)

LAS VEGAS--In a joint CES press conference today, Ford Motor and NPR announced that streaming news is coming "straight to the dashboard."

NPR's new app will work with Ford's in-car control system, Sync AppLink, even those without a touch-screen interface, and is intended to be less distracting to the driver as it's based on voice command. Users can set favorite stations and programs in the app to be browsed later using the car's steering wheel controls. Apps are available immediately in the Android Market and iTunes App Store.

NPR played up the ability to … Read more

Barnes & Noble introduces Nook Tablet (live blog)

Editor's note: We used Cover It Live for this event, so if you missed the live blog, you can still replay it in the embedded component at the end of this post. Replaying the event will give you all the live updates along with commentary from our readers and CNET reporters. Or you can read the edited transcription below. And to get the key points from today's announcement, in which Barnes & Noble introduced the $249 Nook Tablet and reduced the prices for its Nook Color and Simple Touch, you can check out a summary story here. Click here for a hands-on review of the new tablet.

This morning, Barnes & Noble is holding a press conference to unveil next-generation Nook products. We'll be there starting at 9:45 a.m. ET, live-blogging the whole event.

How much less expensive will the touch-based Nook get? Will the new Nook Color be significantly different from the existing one? And, will Barnes & Noble be able to offer the right types of content and value to compete with Amazon's intimidating cloud offerings in books, music, TV, and movies? Will it all unfold like recent rumors suggest, or will there be surprises?

Bookmark this link, and follow the live blog below.

… Read more

Facebook moves from app to platform (live blog)

Editor's note: We used Cover It Live for this event, so if you missed the live blog, you can still replay it in the embedded component below. Replaying the event will give you all the live updates along with commentary and questions from our readers. For those of you who just want the basic updates, we've included them in regular text here. To get the key points from today's announcement, you can check out our analysis in our story here.

PALO ALTO, Calif.--CNET is on the scene at Facebook's headquarters to bring you all the … Read more

Live blog: Bloom box press conference

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Bloom Energy is holding a press event Wednesday morning where the company is expected to unveil further details on its Bloom box product. In case you're just joining us, these boxes promise to not only bring ample amounts of power in a small amount of space, but to change people's dependency on traditional power grids. All for less than $3,000 a unit.

A quick primer on the technology can be seen on this segment from CBS' "60 Minutes," which aired last week. We've also got an FAQ that explains more about what it does here.… Read more

How CoverItLive failed users during iPad unveiling

A Steve Jobs keynote is technology journalism's Super Bowl equivalent. And as with the Super Bowl, they're best enjoyed in real time. Thus the healthy growth of the live-blogging platform CoverItLive, which enables journalists to file live reports that are transmitted, as they type them, to their online readers.

The company, started in 2007, has been growing well and winning the support of journalists not just in the technology realm, but in sports, politics, and other fields. It has become the largest live-blogging platform there is. The embedded CoverItLive live blog player is popping up on sites across the Web. (For a sample CoverItLive live blog, see this replay of a Google press announcement.)

But CoverItLive fell apart during the January 27 iPad announcement. Just as the event was getting started, incoming Apple fans were turned away from embedded CoverItLive live blogs on important sites like TUAW, MacWorld, and MacNN. Readers quickly abandoned many of these sites and headed to others, like Gdgt, that were using home-grown live-blogging tools. To stop readers from leaving, some sites, such TUAW, abandoned CoverItLive on the spot and began publishing frequent updates on their standard platforms. Regardless, it appeared to be a disaster for the small live-blogging company.

The Steve Jobs keynote also temporarily overwhelmed other sites, including CNET News and our sister site ZDNet (read what went wrong). CoverItLive competitors include services like Scribble Live and live video services like Qik and Justin.tv.

This was not CoverItLive's first failure during a Steve Jobs keynote. On January 15, 2008, during the MacBook Air announcement, the platform also collapsed. Since then, CoverItLive flourished nonetheless, winning over journalists in other fields, mostly in sports and politics, who started to use the product regularly. And then the tech sites started to come back.

Sites like MacNN used the service to great advantage. Publisher Monish Bhatia says that building his own live-blogging platform would have been too expensive, and that CoverItLive offered a good blend of features. MacNN used it about six times before the recent failure, he said. But, he told me, "I wish they were a paid service." He wanted a contract to fall back on with the company should anything go wrong.

Between the 2008 failure and the recent one, CoverItLive has not had a failure during a major live event. And many of these events, such as President Obama's Nobel Prize acceptance speech in December of 2009, got more live blog traffic (9 million views) than a Steve Jobs keynote had until then.

So what is it about Jobs' keynotes that is so toxic to CoverItLive? And how can the company regain the trust of tech journalists?

… Read more

CoverItLive gets live video support, of a sort

My favorite liveblogging tool, CoverItLive (see Ultimate liveblogging tool: CoverItLive), is set to add support for live video Tuesday. But rather than launch its own video-streaming service, the system now lets authors insert video embeds from uStream, Qik, or Mogulus into a live blog.

This approach gives CoverItLive users flexibility, but at the cost of simplicity of use. The cool thing is that bloggers have a choice of video services. If you are live-blogging a speech, for example, and you have a good view of the stage, you can pop a Webcam onto your laptop and stream it to your … Read more

Live at D6: Windows 7

Tonight at the D6 conference in Carlsbad, Calif., Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates will take the stage together. The dual interview, to be presided over by The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg, will be, in part, an exit interview. Gates is stepping down from his full-time role at Microsoft (corrected: he will remain as chairman of the board) in July. We will also get an early demo of Windows 7. As Dan Farber reports, we'll see a little bit of the interface, which promises to be very shiny. I'm hoping that we go a … Read more

Live at Google for 'Factory Tour of Search'

We're live at the Google "Factory Tour" in Mountain View today. Marissa Mayer, VP of search products and user experience, will be speaking, as well as Carter Maslan, from Google Maps, R.J. Pittman, GM of search properties, and Johanna Wright, Google Search product manager.

The talks commence at 9:30 a.m. PDT. For the as-it-happens report, see my live blog below and the official video stream here. I recommend you open the video link in a new window, so you can see the stream and live blog together. Check back here after the event closes … Read more