Live blogging right now, continued

Now up to 2,400 live bloggers just over halfway through the episode

Contest

I am in the middle of a contest. I am trying to get a post on the live blog. It seems near impossible, there appears to be a great degree of filtering.

Live Blogging right now

1,200 readers right now on CiL for Monday Night Raw, 5/11/09. Corey Clayton, The Fink, and Joey Styles covering the women’s tag team match.

Modes of Control: filtering

The primary mode of control on the Cover It Live blog for WWE events is the administrator’s function as a filter. As  a live blog with some of the highest traffic counts on Cover It Live, the WWE staff has to take a very active role in administering the live blog.

There are typically at least a thousand or more people tuned in to the live blog during a broadcast. The number varies greatly during the broadcast, but it gives you an idea of how many people might be wanting to comment at once. This is especially true at the very beginning of the broadcast and times in the broadcast when there isn’t much happening. People want to occupy their time with wrestling-related content so they log on with their laptops and witness the event that way.

With so many people watching the live blog, there is bound to be a clog somewhere with too many participants. However, the first ten minutes averages about 110 messages, that’s just over 10 in every minutes. I was suprised by this number. I expected there to be a lot more comments than this. It appears, though, that the administrator has a pretty strong handle on the direction of the conversation and is willing to withhold a comment from being published to make sure the conversation runs smoothly and there are no spammers on the live blog.

It is difficult to say what exactly is being removed from the live blog, or even if there is anything removed at all because I don’t have any contact with Corey Clayton, the person who administers the live blogs. However, I have evidence that there are comments that don’t make it through, but I don’t know what percent of people this might be. Several times a night during an event, a poster will leave a comment about how their posts never get through. The administrator uses this as an opportunity to educate the audience about how the live blog works, the fact that there are hundreds of submissions each night that don’t get through, and that the censorship has nothing to do with the appropriateness of their comments. By talking about his role as an administrator, Corey Clayton sort of settles the crowd by ensuring them that their comments will be posted if they make sense and don’t clog up the rest of the messages.

Snapshots #8

Polls can also be used by the administratorsto pull the conversation back towards
wrestling-related topics. For example, there is usually a poll created for each
match that happens during the night that inquires about who the crowd thinks
the winner will be:

(5/4/09, fans.wwe.com)

Snapshots #7

There are other polls that pop up related to the thrust of the
conversation. For instance, here is a poll of favorite buffalo wing sauces that
sprung up when the administrator mentioned that the event was live from
Buffalo, NY:

(5/4/09, fans.wwe.com)

These types of conversations happen quite often as the conversation
diverges from wrestling.

Snapshots #6

(5/4/09, fans.wwe.com)

Here is an image from the May 4th Cover It Live presentation of Raw.
I highlight it here because of the polls. These polls gauge general opinion
about popular topics in the wrestling world. For instance, this example has polls
about who people think will be the champion is two different categories.

These are likely orchestrated beforehand to encourage discussion in slow times
during the show.

Snapshots #5

(4/26/09, fans.wwe.com)

Active links to WWE-related sites and polls make Cover It Live a highly interactive environment.

Corey Clayton

My original plan was to do an interview with Corey Clayton, the head administrator of WWE Cover It Live blogs. Unfortunately, I haven’t received a response after my multiple attempts to reach him through different means. I fI am unable to capture his thoughts on how he runs to blog, my filtering section may be difficult to carve out. I still have hope that I will hear from him soon. If I don’t hear from him, I will be forced to make inferences according to the things Clayton says during the live blog.

corey clayton

Snapshots #4

These prommercials open up several Cover It Live events. Cover It Live gives administrators the ability to post videos very easily, so the WWE uses this as an opportunity to promote parts of the larger WWE brand.

(Raw MEGA Monday on WWE Universe, 4/27/09)