Today we are happy to announce another first for publishers – An embeddable Real-time River widget for their site.
The Latest News section of today’s sites are static, non-social blocks that freeze after the page loads. These blocks fail to update readers of new content or show social interactions happening on article pages.
Echo’s new River product streams all new headlines and a preview of the emerging conversation to the home page in real-time. Users are drawn into the site by seeing the news of the day and its related conversation unfold before their eyes without having to refresh the page.
Displaying conversations on the home page in this way changes the way people see the front page of a typical news site. Readers get to see a summary of what people like them are saying right from the front page, getting a new perspective on the headlines of the day.
Each Headline in the stream includes a linked Title, the author’s name & avatar and the first few lines of the article. Nested underneath is a Whirlpool of its related conversations with special emphasis on the Face, Username and Comment of each user. Facebook and other social networking sites prove that placing the faces and friends of real people on the page in this way drives engagement and page views.
Integration into existing sites is extremely lightweight, and the product works with any content management system, quickly integrated into existing logins and content. Publishers can effectively join the real-time web with one block of javascript.
Of course Echo River supports the display of Echo Comments, but it also supports Disqus, WordPress and IntenseDebate comments as well or any site with an RSS feed of their comments
Publishers can completely customize the look and feel of River. They can choose to display headlines from across the site or from specific sections. Any combination of Comments, Tweets, Diggs, etc. can also be added or removed from the stream.
Echo River is designed to support the business of publishing by driving more time spent, more engagement with comments, increased click-through rates and increased page views and ad views.
This new product continues our mission to turn static web pages into vibrant real-time experiences, driving Facebook style engagement on our publisher sites.
You can see a demo of the Echo River running on a mockup of the Techcrunch homepage here or on our official demo.
Publishers can get access to Echo River by signing up for Echo Pro.
Coverage around the web
- Mashable – Add Facebook-like Interaction to Your Website’s Front Page
- Teens in Tech – Echo Announces Echo River; Brings Real-Time Comments To The Homepage
- Techcrunch – Echo Brings Comments To Your Homepage With Real-Time River
- LouisGray – Echo Debuts Real-Time River to Highlight Media Engagement
- TheNextWeb – Echo launches “River” to keep content flowing on the homepage
- SiliconAngle – Echo River Makes News Headlines and Comments Real-Time
- Search Engine Watch
Tags: Admin, announcement, content, conversation, real-time, river, update
