This started in the comments thread on another post, but let's talk about the live chat function.

Let's say some new story breaks and everyone is in the live chat room for that story discussing it. I think we all agree that this feature is one of the most interesting things on Newsvine, because it is ultimately uber-dynamic content. While much of the stuff going on in the chat room will likely be chatter, can we assume that 10% of the conversation is going to be something that is worth reading?

My question is, is there any way to isolate and preserve that 10%? Is it possible to publish snippets from a live chat? It would suck if there was a really insightful conversation about the topic at hand, but it was lost as soon as the last person involved closed her browser.

So, here is my idea - next to each person's name in livechat include a little icon with the letter (i). This is to the most immediate left, before even the name. When you click that icon, you have selected an In Point. Every line of text after that now has an (o) instead of the (i), which is, as you have doubtless guessed, the outpoint. Once you pick an output, every line between the two of them has an (e) for exclude - perhaps there are multiple conversations going on and you just want to snag the relevant soundbytes (textbytes?). So you click the (e) to filter out some irrelevant information and you are left with a chatlog that you can then export as a post.

What do you think? Perhaps treat this as a separate post, or else add a category (Newsvine Seeds? Newsvine Berries? Newsvine Leaves?) which is devoted to LiveChat logs. Then the newly created "Newsvine Leaf" gets appended to the article in whose chat box it took place. Or, if it was an "off-topic" chat but still worth saving, perhaps have the option to plant it somewhere else. I really enjoy the botanical metaphors available due to the whole "Vine" thing.

So yeah then you can post the chat log, it can be all pretty with links to the chatters' profiles etc. What do you think?