Lifestreaming: The New Future of Blogging?
Erin Blaskiewww.erinblaskie.com@ErinBlaskie (Twitter)
5 Things Most People Don’t Know About Me
• I’m afraid of the dark. Big-time mega scared.• I auditioned for Canadian Idol but didn’t make it • I won’t eat sandwiches with the crust still on.• My favourite song of all-time is Bette Davis Eyes.• I much prefer Star Trek (Next Generation) over Star
Wars and I haven’t seen any of the Star Wars movies.
And, 5 Things Most People Do
• I am in love with the Internet and addicted to Twitter.• I play a lot of video games and started a gaming site
to harbour this obsession.• Even though I’ve been to nearly 400 cities in 15
countries, my favourite city on the planet is New York City.
• My professional / geek crushes include Matt Mullenweg and Wil Wheaton.
• I really, really, really love Tim Horton's coffee.
OUR CONVERSATIONS BECOME COLLECTIVE MONOLOGUES, AND WE NEVER REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT’S GOING ON INSIDE ANOTHER HUMAN BEING.
-- Stephen R. Covey,“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”
Telling You About Myself is Only One Side of the Equation
• I don’t really know you. Yet.• How can I get to know you?• Where do you engage most with your tribe?• Why is a tribe important?• How transparent are you in your activities?• What are the tools that are available to us
now to engage, interact and share?
What is Lifestreaming?
• Lifestreaming is a continual broadcast of events in a person's life through digital media.
• Lifestreaming is the act of aggregating many streams, generally using a third party service that then shows the content in chronological order.
Why Lifestreaming?
• People are feeling the “need” to utilize all of these different sites but there is no automation or system to it.
• Building a lifestream creates order in the midst of real life chaos.
• People are diverse so a lifestream allows for diversification without sending readers to a hundred different locations.
Why Lifestreaming?
• Provides readers with a snapshot of the blogger’s life providing a much more in-depth look into what they are doing, reading and listening to.
• Allows blogger to share things quickly, easily and effectively with readers.
Lifestreaming: Incoming Information
Incoming: What am I Listening To?
Incoming: What am I Reading?
Incoming: What Am I Browsing?
Incoming: Where Am I Traveling?
Incoming: What Am I Shooting / Recording / Posting via Online Video?
Incoming: Shooting Photos
The Mobile Generation
• Incoming information needs to also be portable, mobile and easily addable to your lifestream.
• In this next diagram, an iPhone is being used as the basis due to the sheer number of apps.
The Mobile Approach
Outgoing Information
• Once the information comes in to the blog, you need to syndicate it out to the various feeds / websites you belong to.
• This is known as notifying your tribes that you’ve done a new action (also known as enabling stalkers to keep tabs on you…)
Lifestreaming Plug-Ins (A Few...)
• Lifestream - Pulls in data from many sources and produces a grid-like image of your updates.
• My TwitPic’s - Displays recently uploaded pictures to TwitPic.com.
• Sociable - Automatically adds links to favorite social bookmarking / networking sites.
• Tweetly Updater - Posts a notice to Twitter when you update your blog.
External Widgets Added to Sidebar
• Ustream video embed code.• TripIt ‘upcoming trips’ embed code.• Twitter widget.• Blip.fm widget.• Shelfari ‘currently reading’ embed code.
Why Could This Be the Future?
• We’re sharing so much information that we need systems / automation to save time.
• People are finding amazing things through the act of sharing - this allows that to happen in a one to many scenario.
Problematic Areas in Lifestreaming
• Duplication• Information Relevance to Your Audience• Volume Control• Messy Formatting• The Feeling that “I Have to” Lifestream – Lack
of Choice
It Boils Down to Choice...
• We all have a choice as to how much we share.
• We all can make choices about our open life experience.
• Choose something that fits for you and create your tribes in an authentic way.
THE QUESTION WE NEED TO ASK: BY CREATING SUCH TRANSPARENCY ONLINE, ARE WE CREATING ORGANIC SHARING EXPERIENCES OR ARE WE ADDING TO THE “NOISE”?
Engage With Me So That I May Engage With You
• @ErinBlaskie on Twitter
• www.erinblaskie.com and www.bsetc.com • [email protected]
• Slide deck is uploaded and available at:www.slideshare.net/erinblaskie