{"id":96648,"date":"2012-09-07T10:00:10","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T14:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wpmu.org\/?p=96648"},"modified":"2022-03-14T23:50:25","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T23:50:25","slug":"live-blogging-wordpress-plugin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/live-blogging-wordpress-plugin\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Blogging WordPress Plugins for In-the-Moment Posts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some things are just better live.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s an excitement and an energy that accompany live events. Political elections, sporting events, conferences, movie openings, TV shows, and even product releases all qualify as possible worthy subjects of live coverage.<\/p>\n<p>The problem with blogging a live event with WordPress is that the system is not really set up for it. When you blog a live event, you need to move fast. Trying to create a new post or even update an existing post in a quick manner can be cumbersome and slow.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, your reader doesn\u2019t want to keep refreshing to see if there\u2019s something new.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Solution<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Enter live blogging plugins.<\/p>\n<p>Live blogging plugins let you turn a post into a quick and nimble Twitter-like display that will update automatically without refreshing for the reader and give the author an environment more conducive to quick posting.<\/p>\n<p>Below we\u2019ve collected the best live blogging plugins we could find. If you know of others, let us know in the comments.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>1. Liveblog <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/plugins\/liveblog\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Liveblog plugin<\/a> is a new plugin from Automattic. It\u2019s a simple but effective plugin. Here\u2019s what you get:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Post updates from the front-end of your blog<\/li>\n<li>Drag and drop images into the blogging area<\/li>\n<li>Make any post a live blog<\/li>\n<li>Provides an area at the top of the post that stays at the top (good for intro\/description)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And here\u2019s what a live blog looks like in action.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-96651\" title=\"liveblog-published\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/liveblog-published.jpg\" alt=\"Post image\" aria-hidden=\"true\" width=\"703\" height=\"611\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what the posting area looks like.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-96652\" title=\"liveblog-posting-area\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/liveblog-posting-area.jpg\" alt=\"Post image\" aria-hidden=\"true\" width=\"705\" height=\"318\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>One potential negative with this plugin is that it cuts off the updated entries on the homepage. It leaves the intro section but not the entries themselves.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-96653\" title=\"liveblog-cuts-off\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/liveblog-cuts-off.jpg\" alt=\"Post image\" aria-hidden=\"true\" width=\"703\" height=\"506\" \/><\/p>\n<h2><strong>2. Live Blogging<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/plugins\/live-blogging\/\" target=\"_blank\">Live Blogging plugin<\/a> takes a little more work to set up a live blog post, but it also offers you a few more options, such as automatic Twitter integration. \u00a0As the plugin author says, \u201cIf activated, the first 139 characters of each live blog entry will be posted to Twitter when they are made.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a look at the live blog post.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-96654\" title=\"liveblogging-post\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/liveblogging-post.jpg\" alt=\"Post image\" aria-hidden=\"true\" width=\"702\" height=\"658\" \/>In order to make an entry, it\u2019s a little more complicated in the beginning than the Liveblog plugin. Here\u2019s a quick look at the process of setting it up. (Once it\u2019s set up, however, you can just keep entering new entries in the same editor without going to a new page.)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-96655\" title=\"liveblogging-entries\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/liveblogging-entries.jpg\" alt=\"Post image\" aria-hidden=\"true\" width=\"702\" height=\"1236\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a look at the settings.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-96656\" title=\"liveblogging-settings\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/liveblogging-settings.jpg\" alt=\"Post image\" aria-hidden=\"true\" width=\"703\" height=\"604\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This plugin also cuts off the entries on the homepage.<\/p>\n<p>And so there you have it &#8212; some nice live-blogging plugins that will definitely make your live blogging a better experience for both you and your visitors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Need to blog something happening now? A live-blogging plugin will make it easier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84404,"featured_media":206301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"blog_reading_time":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_tutorials_categories":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[639],"tutorials_categories":[],"class_list":["post-96648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plugins","tag-blogging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84404"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96648"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205074,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96648\/revisions\/205074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96648"},{"taxonomy":"tutorials_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tutorials_categories?post=96648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}