Use google docs for live blogging

Advantages for using google docs for live blogging:-

  1. you are live-blogging on your own website and not on some third-party platform – that means you retain all the web traffic
  2. Google Docs offers a very rich blog editor so you get to include photos, hyperlinks, tables, etc in your blog post as per the need
  3. Ctrl+S keyboard shortcut is your best friend – you can save content without reloading the page.

This tutorial will show you how to use Google Docs word processor for blogging a live event – it could be a keynote address or a conference call with media or someone speaking at a local BarCamp in your city.

create a new document in Google Docs and give it some descriptive name (like “Launch of Blue Widgets Version 2”) – this will later become the title of our blog post.
Write some placeholder text in the document (like “Stay Tuned, we’ll cover the event live here.”) and save (Ctrl+S).
Now you have two options here.

  • You can either embed this Google document in your blog as an IFRAME.
  • you can republish the contents of this document as a new blog post (better approach though it requires an additional step).


From the Share Menu, select “Publish as Web Page” and “Publish Document.” Also check the setting that says “Automatically re-publish when changes are made.”

Go back to the document and select “View as Web Page” from the File menu. What you now see on the screen is a plain vanilla document without any toolbars and menus. To embed this in your blog, copy the URL from the browser bar and use an IFRAME tag.

Now as soon as you write something in this Google document and hit save, the content will appear instantly on your blog. If someone is reading your live blog already, he may have to reload the page.

To read more on this topic click here to visit the source.