Like many people, I watched Twitter’s press conference yesterday evening on a live feed. It wasn’t provided by Twitter or a mainstream news organization, but by Robert Scoble (@scobleizer). It wasn’t shot with a camera per se, but with his laptop — an entirely social and surprisingly interactive way to cover the old-fashioned press conference.
Scoble started the live stream in Twitter’s lobby, sending out a few tweets linking his Ustream page. He carried his laptop around, asking the gathering media questions — even pressing a YouTube representative why she was attending the event, which was still a mystery. He also gave viewers a tour of the lobby (video). By starting his stream early, he gradually picked up more and more viewers, and bloggers began embedding the live stream — even HuffingtonPost.com embedded it.
Here’s where it gets cool and slightly bizarre. Ustream allows users to chat alongside the stream, so with the press conference underway (video), Scoble would throw out questions from users. From time to time, he’d whisper into the microphone that he’d try to get in this question or that one, and he’d occasionally poke his head over the laptop to see the screen. It was an odd but incredibly cool way to watch — it was almost like being there.
Press conferences are one of the most boring things on the planet, and most of them are terribly formal. So why not reinvent them as an interactive event? Perhaps you wouldn’t shoot it with a laptop on the floor, but I think there are a few lessons we can learn from Scoble’s interactive, social, insider approach.