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Any member of CityTools can use our free writing tools -- and a special feature of them -- to deliver continuous, live coverage of unfolding events.
Whether it's a meeting, a demonstration, a sports event, or simply your blow-by-blow reaction to a concert or television program, your readers can watch the story unfold as you write it -- and the story updates itself.In addition, you can even do this with teams in order to deliver live, collaborative coverage from many different perspectives!1First create the stub of the story
Craft an introduction to the story that lets readers know it will be live and updated -- ideally tell them the time frame in which the updates happen.
In other words, give the reader enough information to know whether they want to commit the time to follow the live event.
An important note: Make sure to set the status button of the story to "publish." Draft stories can't be seen by the general public.
Incidentally, the live coverage feature is only available for original stories. Shared stories and lists don't support live coverage.
In other words, give the reader enough information to know whether they want to commit the time to follow the live event.
An important note: Make sure to set the status button of the story to "publish." Draft stories can't be seen by the general public.
Incidentally, the live coverage feature is only available for original stories. Shared stories and lists don't support live coverage.
2Turn on the live coverage feature
After you save a story for the first time, you'll see the live coverage box appear on the right of the story.
It's a simple control: click "turn on live coverage" to start live coverage, click "turn off live coverage" to stop it.
When you turn live coverage on, a little flag is set in the story that tells the readers web browser to automatically reload the page so readers won't have to remember to do it themselves.
This stops when you click the "turn live coverag eff" link.
Live coverage always expires after three hours, unless you start it again.
It's a simple control: click "turn on live coverage" to start live coverage, click "turn off live coverage" to stop it.
When you turn live coverage on, a little flag is set in the story that tells the readers web browser to automatically reload the page so readers won't have to remember to do it themselves.
This stops when you click the "turn live coverag eff" link.
Live coverage always expires after three hours, unless you start it again.
3Now, as the event unfolds, write!
As your event unfolds, write your story describing what is happening .
While you can rewrite the whole story from scratch, it's best for live coverage to simply add more text to the bottom of the story.
It's a good idea to put some kind of visual separator,
like this:
-----------------------------------
in between entries to let readers identify individual entries.
Save your story after you add each element and when you save it, the new additions will be added to the bottom of the story when readers' automatic reload takes place.
Incidentally, we're already at worked with a fancy new version of live coverage that will work even more elegantly and add some great additional features.
While you can rewrite the whole story from scratch, it's best for live coverage to simply add more text to the bottom of the story.
It's a good idea to put some kind of visual separator,
like this:
-----------------------------------
in between entries to let readers identify individual entries.
Save your story after you add each element and when you save it, the new additions will be added to the bottom of the story when readers' automatic reload takes place.
Incidentally, we're already at worked with a fancy new version of live coverage that will work even more elegantly and add some great additional features.
4Turn live coverage off when the event is over
Although live coverage automatically ends after three hours, it's good manners to actually sign off for your readers.
If you don't sign off and let reader know the live coverage is over, they might continue to wait for updates for some time.
Once they realize you don't care enough to tell them it's over, they won't be back to read your stories again.
So be courteous and sign off for readers and then turn off live coverage in the box next to your story.
If you don't sign off and let reader know the live coverage is over, they might continue to wait for updates for some time.
Once they realize you don't care enough to tell them it's over, they won't be back to read your stories again.
So be courteous and sign off for readers and then turn off live coverage in the box next to your story.
