Some time back I gave the live blogging tool Cover It Live a whirl. It worked out great for both my NV coverage and for the Row Three Oscars live blog but it did have a few speedbumps, mostly that every comment had to be approved, something that turns into a bit of a hair pulling activity when you have a busy discussion as we did during the Oscar chat, and the fact that there could only be one moderator. We struggled through but the tool, even with its hiccups, allowed for a much smoother discussion than a traditional live blog. Now CIT has added a couple of new features that is sure to make current users happy and likely entice those sitting in the wigs.

Highlights of the recent upgrades include:

- Multi-authored live blogging which allows more than one producer/panelist to help run the event

- 'Always Allow' Reader Comments which allows producers to set comments from certain readers to be approved automatically, saving the producer from having to manually approve every comment

- Standby Mode that makes it easier to cover full day event without having to set up individual blogs for each event

- Download Completed Live Blogs so that you can save a transcript and host it on your blog directly

There are a few other fun upgrades but those cover all of my complaints. Now more than ever I'm looking forward to my next opportunity to use the service!

For the past few years, it's become a bit of a tradition for me to have an Oscar party but it requires early planning and the sending out of e-invites in January. Unfortunately, you may recall that in January, the writer's were on strike and there was talk that the Oscars might be all-together canceled. I made the decision to not have a party and instead, looked for some other way to make the event more enjoyable (I find some bits of the show nearly unbearable).

I talked with the fellow Row Three contributors and passed on the idea of live blogging the Oscars and everyone was pretty keen about it. I'd never live blogged before but I knew that I didn't much like the idea of having to update the same post 400 times throughout the 3 hour show while keeping track of the discussion in the comment section of the site. This left me in a conundrum - how on earth am I going to manage this?

I looked around on-line for a solution and stumbled on Cover It Live. Looking over the site, it seemed too good to be true but lo-and-behold, it wasn't. You may have seen my live coverage of NV, mostly as a testing platform, and the event last night went off without a hitch. I had read that there had been problems with the CIL service during Macworld but that may have something to do with the fact that that sort of conference is full of tech savvy folks who probably knew what they were doing. I didn't expect the same problems with the Oscars but I did devised a backup plan just in case of disaster.

The event turned from a 'live blog' to nearly a 'live chat' but either way you cut it, it went very, very smoothly and all because of a little Canadian company. I think it's particularly notable to note that our coverage was indeed live and instantly interactive whereas most of the other big sites 'live blogging' the event resorted to traditional methods and therefore lacked true audience interaction.

I think this is a positive notch in my belt.

Update: I think it's worth noting that the Film Junk crew used my back-up plan.