The Downtempo Blog

Last weekend I ended up at the roller derby (if you haven’t already heard about roller derby, it will hit the mainstream media radar this coming October, when the roller derby movie Whip It comes out in theaters starring Drew Barrymore), enjoying rinkside seats at the Seaside Scuffle watching the Bay Area Derby Girls All-Stars take on the Rose City Rollers (a loss for our home team at the end, but the B.A.D. Girls gave them a serious run for their money — excellent jammers on both sides).

Sitting next to me was a team from the Derby News Network running COVERITLIVE, which lets anyone provide live blogging/news on breaking events. (check out the DNN’s Boutcast Archive for examples of how they integrate COVERITLIVE with Justin.tv to put together different types of live coverage for events)

I love seeing the way that grassroots and growing organizations like the WFTDA are using free live social media / webcasting tools to put together coverage of live events anywhere that a wi-fi (or iPhone data) connection is available. One of the key differences in these tools is that they emphasize live 2-way interaction of fan-to-fan and fan-to-broadcaster interaction, and not just the usual broadcaster-to-fan pipeline. Even for text-only coverage, you see strong user interaction and participation in the community watching the event. Of course, this means that your eventcaster now has to wear another hat (think Vin Scully meets Heather Champ).

Paul Kedrosky (one of my favorite financial bloggers) has evidently noticed this trend in eventcasting as well — he was part of COVERITLIVE’s recent $1mm funding round.

Keep an eye on the 2-way live coverage metaphor as social media moves forward — whether it’s a sports match, an election, or a shuttle launch, it makes sense to link your audience together and put them together with the eventcaster. After all, if they’re going to be discussing your event on Twitter or Facebook anyways, why not host the conversation and get the deeper experience that your users (and advertisers) are asking for?