The Future of Blogging Revealed
There has been a lot of talk lately about the changing face of the blogging landscape. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger asked if blogging has lost its relational focus; Scoble explained why tech blogging has failed you; and even though not everyone agreed with his every statement, there was a renewed commitment in the blogosphere to return to blogging about what excites instead of just writing about "Apple's newest gizmo or the peccadillos of tech personalities." However, we're wondering if people even need to blog anymore...at least in the traditional sense.
Once the main way to publish your own personal thoughts and opinions for the rest of the web to read, blogging started a movement that democratized the web. Everyone could be a publisher. But now, blogging as everyone's preferred method of communication may be over. What's taking its place? Lifestreaming. And don't be fooled into thinking that we're talking just about FriendFeed here - lifestreaming as a format for communication extends beyond just that one social site to encompass an entirely new way to establish your home on today's social web.
Lifestreaming?
Lifestreaming is a new way of documenting the activities surrounding your life using a chronologically-ordered collection of information. Bloggers like Julia Allison, whose internet activities and real-world attention-grabbing stunts made her "internet famous," has used the format to rocket herself into stardom. That stardom even made her the subject of a recent Wired magazine article on the subject of self-promotion. Her method of communication? The lifestream, of course. Her blog is no more than a short collection of photos, videos, copy-and-pasted emails, random thoughts, links, and general over-sharing. The site even scrolls horizontally instead of vertically which makes it seem much more like a timeline than just another blog.
Julia Allison's Site
The simplicity of a lifestream is ideal for our information overloaded age. Lifestreams are short and sweet, yet still provide the same insight into a person's life as yesterday's casual personal blog did. A video here, a photo there, and today's web citizens can voyeuristically peer into anyone's life and get a sense of who they are. Long-form bloggers, on the other hand (myself included) require time and attention to read, but with so many publishers out there, people just aren't reading content like they used to - they're just scanning text and moving on. For new bloggers, this means getting readers is harder than ever - your words are getting lost in a sea of noise. So to stand out, several are turning to the lifestream instead in order to get noticed.
The New Blog
But the Julia Allison method is only one option for lifestreaming. Over the weekend, I stumbled across this blog, if you can even call it that. This was no ordinary blog - it was a lifestream based on the social aggregation service, FriendFeed. Take a look:
The New Blog (Click To See It Larger)
What's amazing about this site is that the elements of traditional blogging are mirrored here. Instead of posts, there's a stream. Instead of "Recent Comments," there are the "Recent Discussions." And instead of an "About Me" page, there's a link to the blogger's Facebook profile. Could this be the future of blogging? For active social participants, the above site could certainly be the ideal blog as it highlights their participation instead of their thoughts and opinions.
But even though FriendFeed might be the easiest way to add a lifestream to your site (or turn your blog into a lifestream), it's certainly not the only way. The Lifestream Blog keeps track of the many different ways that web site owners are self-hosting their own lifestreams. You can check out the galleries of these sites both here and here.
How You Can Stream Your Life
So, how are people doing this? There are several ways, but many people today are using custom code on their sites in order to produce the lifestream. However, if you already have a Wordpress blog, you can set up a custom lifestream within Wordpress with relative ease. In fact, there are a couple of options to do so:
- SimpleLife Wordpress Plugin - this plugin lets you either add your lifestream as a widget or as a page.
- RSS Stream Wordpress Plugin - this plugin lets you add a lifestream as a page on your site.
We also told you about the much-anticipated Sweetcron, brand-new automated lifestreaming software for self-hosting your own stream.
SweetCron
Unfortunately, the developer has still yet to release the software, despite having originally promised a June release. These continued delays leave the door wide open for another developer to release their own software and capture the early adopter lifestreaming market. (Do you know of any others in development? Let us know!)
Lifestreaming Is The Always On Blog
There was a time when casual, personal blogging was your way to communicate with your friends on the web. Via posts, commenting, and blogrolls, bloggers formed niche communities on the web to socialize with each other. Today, new tools provide that same level of socialization - perhaps even better than blogging ever could. Via micro-blogging sites like Twitter, every quick thought or link can be shared with your community of followers and you can see theirs, too. You can join and exit the never-ending conversation at your leisure. Plus, other social sites like FriendFeed provide today's new discussion boards where conversation occurs surrounding the items posted and shared, leading to even more of a community feel, and one that's drawing more users every day.
Sites and social tools like these and many others encourage more participation on the social web than ever before. Although the social participants on these sites are often more active in socializing than they are in blogging, there's still that need to stake out your own piece of real estate on the web. But we wonder: does that really need to be a blog anymore? Perhaps not.
Blogging Newspaper image courtesy of Annie Mole
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awesome post. Lots to digest here. The flow of information is transformed.
Posted by: linkman77
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August 4, 2008 10:25 AM
No. Lifestreaming is not blogging. It is, maybe, a type of blogging, but the 2 are not equivalent.
for example, this very post is not lifestreaming. It's a post on a topic. This entire site is a site that explores a certain topic area. I don't really care where you folks eat lunch, what you do on the weekends, what you're inner thoughts are, whether your friend just found a cool site or posted some new pictures on Flickr.
In fact, I just unsubscribed from a Twitter feed which talked of NOTHING but that person's personal life. She has a good rep in an area that intrigued me and her site's full of good posts on it... with the occasional post on personal stuff. That's cool. But her Twitter stream was nothing BUT personal streaming. And the sad thing is that she very rarely posts on her area of expertise on her blog. Yes, that's right - the medium that really got her name out there and one where she can express interesting thoughts in long form is what she's abandoned.
I don't mind lifesteaming, but ultimately most of us aren't going to care about the day to day lives of people we don't know. There will be the occasional exception and people might follow their friends... but in general lifestreaming is the Web 2.0 version of the initial navel-gazing blogosphere. The sad thing is that it's taking some very good bloggers away from writing about interesting topics where they have real knowledge to share.
Rick is right. The lifestream angle is great if your focus is your life and the chronological order, but thoughts are different -- they're topical and just because they're 'old' don't necessarily make them out of date (although in some cases they do :)
The point of the conversations is 'thinking' not 'doing' (which, BTW, is the antithesis of most online design -- hmmm, haven't thought about that before).
I do think a transformation is coming. If you look at the birth of USA Today more than 20 years ago, it was founded on the idea that people didn't have the time or inclination to read long stories in traditional, black and white newspapers.
Why wouldn't the blogging world be affected by the same thing? People are so busy blogging themselves, and keeping up with all the social media, that bloggers are going to have to find new ways to attract and keep interest.
I think you're going to see a lot of blogs fall out simply because people are burned out and stressed out trying to keep up, and people become bored with the content. They're going to be looking for the next new thing, and you may have found it.
I love this post; I think it is so interesting what the Web is turning into. I was actually talking with a reporter from Wired about that cover the other day, and I think you hit the nail on the head when you discussed the idea of voyeurism. I have to wonder though, does this new type of blogging allow for pretty much zero privacy? How much do you have to share in order to be engaging, without going down the rabbit hole that Julia fell into? Can you be a successful life streamer without bearing all??
This is interesting indeed. While, I write usually as to how to make your blog posts readable, how to highlight them professionally, etc., I have grave fear that there may be a time when all people will be interested in skimming only. There is as you say a sea of information for them to read. However, one thing is for sure. Worthy information, scoops etc., will be read.
I don't quite agree that a lifestream as you mention here is of any great use for publishers. There is not big opportunity for monetization. Also the search engines want content of many words, not snippets of one or two sentences or links. So, how these sites are going to rank is a question to ask.
Lenin
Sarah, great article. It really makes me think about the differences between traditional blogging and lifestreaming. I think I'm finally starting to understand some of Alexander van Elsas's ideas a little better after reading this post.
Lifestreaming will probably appeal to people who are less concerned about writing as their primary output and who do more with audio, video, and images. It may also be more suited to people who share freely and easily as opposed to saving up bits and ideas and then posting.
Traditional blogging is a more introverted activity, IMHO, and lifestreaming may be a more extroverted activity.
Is it the future or is the future of blogging a return to blogging roots, with noise moving to lifestreams?
Posted by: Tristan Louis
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August 4, 2008 11:44 AM
@Tristan - I get what you mean. Many blogs have become pseudo magazine publishing sites (Engadget, Techcrunch) - the personal, communicative element has been totally eroded there. I think sites like LiveJournal are truer to the roots of blogging. ie blog = weblog = web log
Posted by: linkman77
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August 4, 2008 11:47 AM
It's a good article, but it seems like this is more of a fork in the road of the future, rather than the future of all blogging, an alternative or compliment rather than the next evolution. Thought leaders may still want to blog, or have some kind of interactive platform for their voices. If RWW was a lifestream, what would this post have been like?
Posted by: tinu
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August 4, 2008 11:48 AM
I agree that this is the modern version of the good old Geocities personal homepage (for people who don't have the time to keep a regular blog): A lifestream does give a quick overview of what a person is about.
Building this on the FriendFeed API is not a bad idea, but even easier, at Soup.io we give you a hosted hybrid lifestream/tumblelog that you can point your own domain at: full, unlimited feed imports (unlike Tumblr), local multimedia posts, a bookmarklet plus full CSS customization.
For more feedback ask Richard McManus, he's a user :)
Oh, goodie !!!
Another way to reveal the surface me and avoid any issues that might matter...
I really don't see it as replacing blogging, but I do see it as a suppliment to it. Kind of like an ongoing "About Us" page.
I use Twitter as more of a way to extend that personal connection and sense of community beyond the static bio of an about us page.
Considering I have a very technical blog - and not one that has much room for personal commentary - I use twitter to try and include that personal touch... like "blogging used to be"
I like the idea of a blog based round the Friendfeed stream. I could see things heading more in that direction. The blog showcased in the article highlights one of the crippling drawbacks of Friendfeed, though, which is the lack of a "recent conversation" summary. Also: I don't think lifestreaming is necessarily navel-gazing. Most shares on Friendfeed aren't personal streaming, for example, but links to the articles, photos or videos that a user is interested in.
Posted by: David Young
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August 4, 2008 1:48 PM
Lifestreaming is even more of a niche than blogging is! I'm not sure why there seems to be this constant push that "X will replace Y." All these tools and forms of communication are additive. TV did not kill radio, the internet ain't killing TV anytime soon, despite what we all read, write and think.
When we get out there in the "real world," the penetration into the public consciousness of all of these things (blogging, podcasting, Twitter, FriendFeed, etc.), things that seem like second nature to all of us, is so mind bogglingly low, we would all do well to recognize. @tinu is right when they say it's more of a fork in the road.
I think we in the vanguard of all this stuff tend to jump on the next shiny, new thing instead of focusing less on the tools and more on how we're going to change the face of communication.
I agree with Rick (#2), lifestreaming is not going to replace blogging anytime soon because they are two totally different things. The sites you mentioned with the blog/lifestream combination are only about people and have not real "content".
Lots of blogs are personal sites and yes lifestreaming will replace PERSONAL blogs, they will not replace informational/knowledge-based blogs, such as a tech blog, political blog, etc.
I think it all depends on what your topic is...some hobby or industry or skill or whether it is your life, who you are or what you create. I think form follows content.
I can see where lifecasting would be compelling to read (depending on who the person is) but I'd rather share my thought & ideas in a blog than share what goes on in my personal life. It is okay to share it with a small group on Twitter & Facebook but not for permanent posting on the web.
I think it also has to do with whether you merge your professional and personal lives online or keep them compartmentalized. I tend towards the latter.
Would love to stream my Seesmic comments to RWW!
I am a Cannibal and my dinner is Virgins and Middle Class! http://seesmic.com/video/IgWXgK0B13
I have done almost exactly the same thing with my site Svartling Network: http://www.svartling.net/
Posted by: Svartling
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August 4, 2008 3:06 PM
I don't think this is blogging (as some commented), this is more a form of entertainment. It's like American Idol vs. pro singers
Posted by: JungleG
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August 4, 2008 3:16 PM
Kinda goes without saying that those with the most interesting lives don't have time to lifestream, and those who lifestream don't have time to live interesting lives.
Case in point: Julia Allison. I'd never heard of her before this post, and I doubt that I'll be hearing about her again. She seems like this years' Kevin Federline. Next!
I love FriendFeed - very interesting especially when most people participate in at least 5 or 6 Social Networks*
I was actually going to pick this Copy of Wired up but it wasn't on the Newsstands yet*
To my mind the Info presented is a lot more interesting than Plain Old Twitter*
;)) Peace*
the conversation is the blog
Excellent post Sarah. Ref Christopher's comment, I have been using Soup.io lately to aggregate my 'lifestream' and thoughts re music, books etc. It's nothing special tbh (I don't have any time to devote to it!), but I have thought of it as re-discovering personal blogging.
definitely a work in progress and by no means is the content compelling for anyone but me, but to illustrate what I've been doing here it is:
http://ricmac.soup.io/
I do love http://cheslow.com/ , that absolutely rocks. It was kind of what I wanted to do, if I had the time and talent to design something like that :-)
what an egotistical concept. won't be reading any of that shit.
Well, I get it that blogging about anything or making anything that sound like something is not easy.
Case in point this entry that really talks about nothing that it pretends to talk about. You are not talking about blogging, you are trying to tell people...how to blog. Helps that you throw few names here and there so you get your post "marketable"So instead of blogging try the "collage" of totally random stuff and that....replaces the "concept" of blogging?
I mean, Blogging touches on the "notions" of the self, subjectivity, etc... it transform them as such. People, at least most of them, use them as a mean to an end. it is NOT a technology that: "should be used this or that way". And please, someone make these "new age writers" understand that blogs are not "fashion" that could die, throwing stuff like "it's not what it used to be" or: "back in the old days of blogging; like 5 years ago..it was so different.."etc etc...next thing they will ask is regulation : "got to pass an exam to blog" sort of things...
The funny part is the whole post is trying to introduce "life streaming" as an alternative to "blogging"...like drink H2O; water is so passe.
But who reads these aggregated sites? I read stuff in my RSS reader, on twitter, on Facebook, RSS to my phone, to IM. But I rarely type "aguyslifestream.com" in my address bar. Do we need such sites? Or is it more a replacement of the traditional portfolio/CV "about me" site?
Lifestreaming would definitly become massive. Social tools are driven that way. But don't you think there's a difference between streaming what you're doing and what you're thinking or discussing? There's enough room for blogging and lifestreaming, basically because the use and objectives are different. People need to get information, not just "what I'm doing, digging, bookmarking", because without any content, there's no digging, bookmarking and reviewing.
And regarding the changing face of the blogging landscape, that's great new people come to express themselves on the Internet using easier tools than blogs!
Hmmm, this is a really interesting heads-up, thanks very much. It's given me some ideas to chew over. Cheers!
Yes
Should check out www.swurl.com It is lifestreaming in a blog-like format. You can also setup a CNAME so place the stream on your own domain name.
Awesome post, Sarah! I'm inspired daily by the malleable nature of the social tools and platforms found all over the web. And I applaud innovative application of these tools and platforms. Those of us deep in the trenches may forget that we are engaging with an evolving culture where expectations and conventions are being challenged daily. Exciting times indeed!
cheers~ Kat
Check http://chyrp.net its a cool script to made a lifestream with import capacities.
Lifestream instead of posting...
Makes sense, increasingly the conversation and commentary is happening in a mixed media, multi site mode. Aggregating an authors activity makes this easier to manage. One problem is that the feedsteam's tend to get like a firehose and noisy where a blog can be easier to control the quality and frequency of output.
Lifestream instead of traditional blog posting...
Makes sense, increasingly the conversation and commentary is happening in a mixed media, multi site mode. Aggregating an authors activity makes this easier to manage. One problem is that the feedsteam's tend to get like a fire hose and noisy where a blog can be easier to control the quality and frequency of output.
Brilliant range of responses. I started yesterday to list the reasons why some people are getting hooked on social media and information gathering, filtering and reviewing.... and I just can't stop: http://justseventhings.com/2008/08/04/the-social-and-information-web-drug/
Thoughts?
Hmmm ...
I don't think life streaming will replace blogging. Twitter for example is interesting and almost addictive but it has no depth. For myself one of the great things with twitter is when people I am following point me in the direction of a great blog or post they have found.
I do however agree there is a need to bring everything together, my blog for example, and especially my about page is a central hub of my Social Network. It links to most things I do online.
http://www.stephenbaugh.com/about
I try to logon atleast one a day or so.
Posted by: Aaron Myers
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August 5, 2008 8:04 PM
Great analysis, I think there is some truth to what you are saying here. Between Questler and Twitter I find my self blogging less and less on my WordPress blog its just seems much more convenient and right to the point. But I think lifestreaming mabye the way for the masses yet still I like to read long articles in the blogshpere.
Misleading title, as lifestreaming is not blogging. LS is for the Paris\Facebook generation with the attention-span of the average commercial; blogs are for people that have something to say - attracting readers(!) - now that there is so much personal trash online, the quality blogs will stand out - perhaps fewer readers than before, but they will be more loyal - good for advertisers.
This is awesome...Novel concept...Taking to the next level of blogging
Here's my personal lifestreaming site : http://www.georgepapadongonas.com. I built it in a couple of hours, using Drupal.
I agree with Aseem's comments (#16). Perhaps the title of this post should be, the Future of Personal Blogging Revealed.
The future of corporate blogging may be more Work Stream oriented, but I'm not sure the "Next" model for that has been developed. Companies are embracing blogging, twittering and other social media that ultimately lead to better PR, better Customer Service, and better Sales. Perhaps the streams of these different elements pulled together will ultimately be the next web presence for companies. The Kodak Stream or Coke Stream have an interesting ring to it, but I doubt the "I'm heading to lunch at Potbelly's" tweets and "Tara just had a baby" Flickr album will provide a ton of value. Maybe it will be just a matter of intelligently filtering the streams.
Is it just me or is all of this beginning to sound like a real-life "Matrix?" And does anyone know if there has been a case in which a popular blogger was discovered to not even be a real person? I think that's where all of this is leading to. Reminds of a book I'm reading called River of Gods which is set in the future India. In it the biggest TV star is an AI. It raises the question; Does something have to be physically "real" in order to be "real?"
If person writes about his life and thoughts, then it's ok, but when thousands of people write about "making money online", then it's not even funny anymore, it's sad...
Lifestreaming is fast food output of publishers/bloggers and not worth the consumption unless you are absolutly bored to death and want some entertainment.
The quickest way for a blogger to loose it's dedicated readership is to move to life streaming. I dont give a shit if you just took a shit on a train, I read a blog becuase there is something of value there (like this post). 6.5 billion lifestreams is nothing more than than a river of mud.
seen all these things before, it's not fresh news, but it is a well laid out article, so props. Julia Allison, heh.
@modidlee RE: matrix and unreal blogger celebrities, see William Gibson's book Idoru ... you'll like it
Maybe I do not get it... but what's new about this? Isn't my Facebook News Feed already my personal Lifestream (if I want that to be)?
Lifestreaming is great if the person is:
1. a friend of yours; or
2. a celebrity of some sort
Otherwise, who cares about all the info in someone's lifestream? I certainly wouldn't keep up with one person's lifestream, let alone a dozen.
Julia is only interesting because she's pretty and charismatic. Most people wouldn't get an audience with the same type of lifestream blog.
I have been thinking how I could restructure my businesses website. As everyone becomes more comfortable with social networking sites and applications lifestreaming will become mainstream.
I like the idea of using your social profile in replace of your about page. I may use my Linkedin profile badge instead but the combination of friendfeeds and comments is excellent.
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