Live chats and live coverage continue to expand on NewsOK.com

We’ve been doing chats a long time on NewsOK.

Honestly, live chats on NewsOK.com were pretty unique to us within the industry not all that long ago. Seems pretty simple now that there are live videos on Facebook and live chats on websites everywhere, but NewsOK was truly one of the first large news websites using such a tool on a regular basis.

When Twitter became a primary tool to communicate, tools became available to publishers like us to pull in Tweets within our reporting.

We did that, too. We used tweets from our reporters to report information as it became available. As it is with any technology, we’re always looking for ways to leverage technology to improve the experience for our readers. How can we better inform the public? That’s the goal.

The live chat and live coverage technology hasn’t changed a lot in the last couple years. It’s been about the same.

Reporters chat with readers on a regular basis – especially the sports reporters and business reporters. Those are always fun to follow.

When breaking news or big sporting events happen, we use a live coverage tool to pull in tweets and updates from various sources to report in a real-time way.

In November, we rolled out a significant upgrade to our live tool. We started with live coverage, especially the sporting events. It’s faster than ever. When a reporter tweets an update, it’s on NewsOK immediately – no delay at all. It's a great experience to use our live coverage tool on NewsOK.com while the Oklahoma City Thunder games are on TV. It’s an entertaining ‘second-screen experience.’

Later in November, we launched the live chats. It’s still a chat, but it’s easier than ever to follow. We now allow threaded answers and multiple answers for a single question. Plus it’s easy to use. OK … the truth is that it’s good for our readers, but it’s even better for the reporters. They like it, which means it is easier for us to chat more often with our readers.

Try them out. Use our chats. Follow our live coverage.

When you do, know that we are committed to finding ways to expand this technology for more uses, all with the goal of informing you as quickly and simply as possible.