Shift Edit: We’ll Pay for It. Start Charging Now.

There is nothing worse than attempting to read a live blog of an event. NOTHING. It's painful and slow to constantly have to refresh the page to see what completely non-newsworthy information may have been added, and in the case of you, Engadget, add scrolling through the post to the BOTTOM for the newest information.

I would gladly pay money to whomever and for whatever can alleviate this pain, both from the blogger's perspective as well as the reader's, and Shift Edit, I'm talking to you. Dion Almaer points us to this tool currently in alpha, that takes all the pain and agony out of live blogging. According to creator Jonathan Keebler's blog, an embedded version is in the works.

Currently only usable with a Facebook or Windows Live (which includes Hotmail, MSN, etc. logins carried over from the horrible, horrible Microsoft Passport idea), this is obviously still an alpha. I mean, everyone knows nothing that's Web 2.0 can function without a log-in that allows OpenID, right? At the very least, it needs a more universal login method for those folks who hate Facebook and aren't using any Microsoft product as if their lives depended on it. And obviously, the embedding feature will be crucial for the app's success. For an alpha, however, it already has some impressive features, including multi-author capability (utilizing the unique invite code created when you create the live blog) as well as altering the sort order (with oldest posts either first or last depending on preference). It also autopopulates a list of authors who are currently logged in and adding updates, as well as a delete function next to each post to correct any of the mistakes you might make writing as fast as you need to when liveblogging.

Commenter Jordan asked a question I'd originally intended on answering (which is why my headline for this article probably made no sense whatsoever): Why not just use CoverItLive? After all, CoverItLive already has a full feature set. It's been around a while. And it's so fabulous that not only has it been nominated for a Webware 100 award, but it is being used by such huge media organizations as Newsweek. Why on earth would I want to use this little alpha program?

My recommendations for Shift Edit are on the money. Add the rest of your feature set, and start charging for it. CoverItLive is a cool app; please don't get me wrong. My husband, who pratically lives over at ProFootballTalk, one of CoverItLive's users and fans, has sung its praises since they worked out their initial bugs. At the same time, they've never charged for their product. The folks at CoverItLive don't care if you are Newsweek; there is still no charge. Like far too many Web 2.0 apps, there appears to be no business model in place. Awards and big-name users won't keep a company afloat, and I'd rather not depend on something that won't be around.

In addition, and I can't believe I'm saying this; CoverItLive has TOO many features, and not a huge amount of control over them. Shift Edit has already worked around my biggest issue with CoverItLive; with Shift Edit, I can avoid giving out the invite code and NOT have user questions and comments. If you've ever tried to live blog or take notes during a conference call alone as a single author, you know that even the slightest bit of distraction means that you can miss something major. For huge blogs, that's probably not an issue; you can have multple authors fielding questions, adding polls, and doing all the cool things CoverItLive allows you to do. When you are smaller-scale, you often need a simpler solution, and I don't feel that I have it with CoverItLive. In this instance, I think there is room for more than one player. For me, Shift Edit is a better solution, and this is one alpha I'll be watching like a hawk for updates. And I hope everyone else will, too.

Updated 22 March to, well, finish what I started. Sorry about that!