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Live Blog 2.0 for Journalists

What is Live Blog?

Live Blog is a next-generation open source web tool created by Sourcefabric to enable both individuals and teams to report live breaking news from anywhere, working only in a web browser.

With journalists from the BBC, the Guardian, Le Monde, Vorarlberger Nachrichten and Zeit Online all having contributed to its design, Live Blog can justly be said to have been designed by journalists for journalists.

Originally developed for GEN, the Global Editors Network, and further developed in partnership with Mozambique's @Verdade newspaper, Live Blog now forms part of Superdesk, a fast-developing open source project that will enable news organisations to manage all of their newsroom activities, including planning, ingest, writing, publication and archiving.

Source code for Superdesk is available to download from https://github.com/sourcefabric/Superdesk/

The Live Blog component of Superdesk is inspired by the best features of existing live-blogging tools. It gives journalists and editors the ability to curate live content coming from their own correspondents together with selected material from external sources including Google, Instagram, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Soundcloud, Facebook, as well as direct public contributions via comments and SMS.

Being web-based, Live Blog can accept contributions from anywhere, creating new opportunities for independent newsrooms to pool their resources together and collaborate to produce rich live blogs. Live Blog is easy to integrate into your website and alongside existing newsroom systems. The intention is to enhance the tools you're already using, rather than replace them.

The availability of Live Blog means that independent news organisations are now able to emulate the live-blogging capabilities of big newsrooms such as the BBC, the Guardian, the New York Times, and Le Figaro, without having to hire a programming team or buy in an expensive proprietary software solution.

Whether you use it to cover a major set-piece such as an election, a breaking news story, a sporting event or anything else, live-blogging with Live Blog will help you drive traffic and sustain reader interest with engaging content. Live Blog can also facilitate organisations looking to increase revenue by means of sponsorship, contextual adverts or paid subscriptions.

Sourcefabric is keen for as many individuals and organisations as possible to test out Live Blog for themselves, to deploy it in their workflow, and to get involved in shaping its development.

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