WordPress.org

Author: Chris Northwood

To see this plugin in use, it's probably easiest to watch this screencast: http://www.pling.org.uk/static/livebloggingscreencast.swf

Live Blogging is a plugin developed to support blogs that are doing live micro blogging of running events, such as major sport events or tech conferences. (an example of where the plugin was used, and what it was originally developed for: http://www.nouse.co.uk/2009/05/10/roses-2009-live-sunday/)

It provides a simple backend interface, and has multiple hooks that can be triggered when a new live blog post is made - at the moment it has a hook to push to Twitter (example, see http://twitter.com/nouselive) and also to Meteor (http://meteorserver.org).

The plugin is most effective when used alongside Meteor. When Meteor is used, the events are automatically pushed (using Comet technology) to all of your currently connected readers where they slide in at the top of the post - this is the same technology as Twitterfall, whose creators advised in the creation of this plugin. Comments on those posts also automatically appear at the end.

Using the plugin to blog these kind of events has two obvious advantages - reducing load on your server of constant pageloads from people refreshing your blog, and also to get your entries out quicker than anyone else. Also the sliding transition is cool!