Move Over Blogs: Here Comes Lifestreaming
Every few years or so, a new online technology insinuates its way into popular culture. In 2003, I kept reading and hearing about “blogs”. In 2007, the world was all a-”Twitter”. FaceBook, LinkedIn, YouTube — these social media channels are all part of the pop culture landscape.
When I hear these terms to a major extent, I begin to play the part of a cultural anthropologist. I immerse myself in these online cultures, in order to better understand them. With degrees in Sociology and Telecommunication, I’ll note that I’m not an anthropologist. I only play one online. But my interest and background in Sociology and Telecommunications compel me to participate in these online cultures.
I began blogging in 2003, and immersed myself in a Twitter experiment in 2007. I have a YouTube channel, with over 25 videos, one of which has over 350,000 views and a 4.5 star rating with over 580 ratings. I also play at FaceBook, FriendFeed, podcasting, LinkedIn and a few other online channels where I can connect with people and ideas. I learn through experience.
Today, I hear much buzz about lifestreaming — and so with great fascination, I began a one-month lifestreaming experiment at bergells.com. Instead of posting here at my blog — for the entire month of July, I posted at my new Posterous lifestream. For me, this has represented something of a bend in the flow, or the stream of content.
photo credit: Steve & Jemma Copley
But, let’s back up. What’s a lifestream? If we search Google Definitions, we get:
Lifestreaming is the practice of collecting an online user’s disjointed online presence in one central location or site.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestreaming
How does that look? Let’s say you blog. And you’re active on FaceBook. And Twitter. And YouTube. And Delicious. And maybe a couple dozen other social networking sites….
That’s the “disjointed” part of the above definition. Lifestreaming attempts to bring it all together, in one online home base.
How?
At the moment, I see two different online approaches.
- Bringing it all in. If you already have a home base — say, a blog — you can bring in all of your other online activities through a widget or plugin. Every post you make to Twitter or FaceBook, for example, can be “streamed in” with plugins like the SimpleLife Wordpress plugin, which lets you aggregate your lifestream as a widget (sidebar) or separate page.
- Pushing it all out. Lifestream platforms like posterous or tumblr allow you to easily post content. When you post, you can choose to cross-publish this content to dozens of online services — and it all happens automatically. For example, every post that I publish at my posterous lifestream can update my Twitter and FaceBook Status. If I have a video attached to my post, Posterous can update my YouTube Channel. If I have an image, Posterous will post it to FlickR. Posterous can instruct Delicious to bookmark the post — and so on. In this way, Posterous positions itself as the centralized “hub” for your online content.
Of course, when I write that there are two different approaches, I’m bound to discover a mashup of the two. For example, Steve Rubel of PR firm Edelman abandoned his popular MicroPersuasion Blog. Over 5 years of blog posts remain archived online for your reviewing pleasure — but Mr. Rubel tells the world that blogging feels “old”. And that publishing today is all about the “flow“.
I’ll admit — I’m fascinated with lifestreaming. In one short month, I’ve found enormous benefits to posting at Posterous. I’m not ready to abandon blogging quite yet — but I suspect the time will come.
Already, I find — through cultural immersion — that Mr. Rubel has a point. Blogging does feel “old”. The technology backbone makes it easier to post at Posterous than through Blogger or WordPress (yes, I’ve tested it.) The sheer connectedness of lifestreaming to other online networks feels like the beginning of pulling disjointed ideas and communities together. It feels more holistic.
If that sounds new-age, hippy-trippy, I suspect that’s because it is. Don’t forget, I’m new at this lifestreaming business. I have only slightly over a month of it under my belt. To learn more about lifestreaming, I ironically recommend the following blog posts:
- Blogging Versus Lifestreaming
- The Future of Blogging Revealed
- Should People Kill Their Blogs in Favor of Lifestreaming?
What about you? What are your thoughts on lifestreaming v. blogging?
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Comments
Hello Laura,
Thank you for the informative post. It sounds like you have a great deal of experience with blogging and lifestreaming. I myself am new to blogging and have created a blog for a unit I am undertaking. I see many advantages in continuing my blog and would love to hear your thoughts on the best ways to start establishing a personal brand.
Best regards,
Haley
Our online presence is our lifestreaming, isn’t it?
Look also here: http://yigalc.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/is-the-media-social-or-the-people/