Those familiar with traditional journalism would know the significance of reporting the news at the earliest. Journalists all over strive to deliver latest news into your TV room, as soon as they occur, braving all odds in the process.

With high end communication technologies at their disposal, journalists of today have relatively easy job, compared to their seniors who had to depend on traditional medium of communication such as telephone, telegram and fax while they were on the field few decades ago.

With blogging positioning itself as an unofficial alternative to journalism, live blogging can add significant value to any event, even more than what traditional reporting could offer.

In brief, live blogging an event would bring following value additions to stake holders:

1. Traditional media may not be able to cover an event live and delivers event news to public after a delay of few hours to a day. Live blogging, on the other hand can bring in instant updates and happenings of the event, both for the people attending the event as well as to those who are not able to.

2. Live blogging effectively documents the keynotes shared by the speaker. A journalist composing his report at the end of the day will have much less to recall vis-à-vis a blogger who blogs soon after the speaker finishes speaking.

3. Conventional media only gives a high level reporting of the event (due to time and space constraints) while bloggers can report each activity in detail and let readers chose what they want to read.

4. Live blogging, coupled with live twittering, can bring in interactivity with participants who may not be physically present at the venue. This is something impossible in mainstream journalism.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my previous live blogging experiences (of CII Connect 2009, Webinnovation.in 2008 and others) and am eagerly looking forward to IAMAI’s event next week