If you were following us last night, firstly we want to thank you for your much needed input and for being quality followers to our site. We think it’s fantastic that people would actually stick around and want to listen to us. And last night was a first, because we decided to try Google Wave as a live blogging platform instead of Cover it Live. I think it worked pretty well, and it was a good event where we could try ideas and get feedback. We’ve gotten lots of compliments, lots of complaints, but all feedback is positive in this instance; we really want to learn where we can improve our live blogging experience. Federico will be chiming in at the end of this post with his thoughts of course, but I’d like to kick things off with Google Wave, what’s good about it, what we did poorly plus what could improve, and where we go from here.
Google Wave
I have to say, Google Wave is really intriguing. And there’s been lots of articles on it about how it can be used as wikis, and how businesses can use it for discussion; it’s no longer a mysterious piece of technology. While I have some issues with the user interface, it’s a fantastic platform for live blogging on. You get to see information appear in real time, and while we as writers might make mistakes in the course of our reporting, it’s a form of interaction that I think is very personal to readers and writers alike. I think Google Wave is the best way to simulate a physical conversation digitally online, because you get to see the author’s expressions, their struggles, their thoughts, and their emotions appear in real time. Granted, there will be people whose conversation is limited by how fast or how well they can type, but I’m a strong believer in that our typing style, wording, punctuation - the coalesce of all these things is indicative of our personalities. Google Wave does a good job of bringing out more than just text when it’s utilized correctly.
Our experiment last night was interesting, because it was easy for Federico and I to pause, swap information, change subjects, comment on the event, and really get this flow going, this instinct on when to post or write a particular topic. Very seldom did we overlap the same information, and that could easily be fixed. Like talking over someone or interrupting a conversation in real life, they are things that can easily be stopped.
Some problems with Google Wave is that it’s hard to embed information that isn’t a Youtube video. Before the event, I tried to put a quick Kara and Mossberg interview in wave, and I couldn’t display the video without giving the public access to the source code. Editable source code that passerby could alter (you didn’t even have to log in). So I couldn’t find a read-only plugin at the time that would allow me to add embedded information. We hope to provide more visual feedback in the future as we learn how to use this thing.
But the other problem is that Google Wave’s embed on MacStories required users to scroll. And there’s nothing we can do about that - that’s all Google. I felt the same way as some readers who just wanted to sit back and watch the conversation, but the trade off is that if you leave to use the bathroom or something, you don’t have to scroll back up to see missing pieces of a conversation. Though during a live event, I don’t think people need or necessarily want that convenience as long as they get information displayed to them in real time. Being new to Google Wave, we’ll definitely look into how we can automate scrolling or implement an alternative frame. Maybe there’s a line of code we can change somewhere.
MacStories Blogging Format
Like all of our live events, we pretty much just free ball it. And what I felt we were trying to achieve was this quote then comment style that didn’t really work too well inline. It’s okay, but there was nothing to differentiate important topics from casual conversation, and we’re definitely aware of the issue and we’re gonna work on that.
But the interesting thing about MacStories is that we’ve never been a live event provider so to speak. We’ve always followed other live blogs (so we’re probably the most ‘behind’ in this case), but we like to pick and choose the best content from Engadget, Gizmodo, CNET, GDGT, or another fantastic source that we truthfully look up to. On that note: I think Engadget did a great job of posting quick quotes and photos from the event last night, while CNET got information out first with occasional, interesting commentary from their followers (factual data). But until we have the resources and the funds to attend these events live ourselves, we want to give you the best from everywhere - we’re the conglomerate reporters so to speak. To make it more personal, we want to comment on things as they happen; it’s important that we’re not just robots quoting someone on stage. I guess in a way, it’s a way to pay homage to the sites we really respect and follow each day, while providing critical information and our own stance or opinions that we feel our readers are probably interested in.
As for you readers, I really want your feedback on a format you’d like to see. While I feel things should be done a certain way, we won’t pursue bad ideas if our readers have something better in mind. So please, leave a comment, email us, or do something to provide the feedback we need to come out twice as strong as we cover WWDC this year.
I’ll say this: for a format, I think event happenings or quotes should remain inline, with commentary and replies indented underneath. Whether those two should happen at the same time, I don’t know. We could use text emphasis (like bold) to make quotes stand out. The problem with this comes when we finally open our Google Wave up to the public, and comments start going everywhere. And I certainly am not blaming our readers; what I’m saying is that a strict format can be done by journalists, but the public shouldn’t have those restrictions. So making something everyone can read and still follow after all the commentary is our challenge.
We really want to continue using Google Wave in future projects. Federico and I have some interesting ideas in mind that you’ll know about soon enough, and I think you’ll really like them. So with my input added, let’s have Federico share his thoughts on the whole experience. He may not agree with me of course, but that’s the fun part of collaborating and sharing ideas publicly like this.
Federico’s Thoughts
Actually, I definitely agree with what Cody said above. Google Wave is no longer a mystery (as it used to be months ago) and I know many people that use it everyday as their communication platform of choice, whether it’s about business or just fun. Having read posts about Google Wave as a liveblogging platform, we decided to give it a try and evaluate its performance. I have to say, a couple of quirks aside, I really enjoyed covering Steve Jobs’ session at D8 with Wave.
Just like Cody, you can see the conversation flow in real time. If that isn’t a live blog, then I don’t know what it is. You can adjust information as you type, indent replies, edit your messages with just a click. And if you become a master of keyboard shortcuts in Wave, you’ll save lots of time. But no matter how fun I had using Wave yesterday, we have to consider that couple of problems that affected the experience. In order to provide you with a great live experience and make it as simple as possible to follow, we just can’t let the problems slide and keep going with them. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t allow you to easily embed images into Wave and, even worse, doesn’t let you setup settings for auto-scrolling. I think that when following a live event such as a Steve Jobs keynote (or in yesterday’s case, an interview) the live blog experience must be easy to follow and cannot require people to act. You guys should just be able to sit down, have a coffee and see the content flow in real time. Google Wave doesn’t allow that. It’s been an interesting experiment, we’re going to use Wave again in the (near) future, but not for live blogging, unless Google comes up with the right tools for it.
About our live events, Cody has already said enough about it and I couldn’t agree more. MacStories has always been about “getting personal” with what happens, no matter if it’s a review, a preview, a tutorial or a live event. Sure we could work like bots that copy and paste statements from press releases and quotes from Engadget, but we chose to act differently. Even though we haven’t managed yet to be there, liveblogging for you (but it’s going to happen soon), we’ve always wanted to offer more than a simple stream of quotes and pictures. We’ve done this before, your feedback has been positive, we’ll keep rolling with it. The fact that you really care about the stuff we have to say is what gets us to work in the morning, as Steve would say.
Again, thank you guys for sticking with us at yesterday’s live event and thanks for coming back to MacStories every single day. Stay tuned for our live WWDC coverage, as it’s going to be awesome.
