Should People Kill Their Blogs in Favor of Lifestreaming?

By
Mark Krynsky
– June 29, 2009Posted in: Commentary
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At the end of last week, Steve Rubel (a popular PR blogger) made big waves when he announced that he was replacing his blog with a Lifestream. Steve is just the latest convert to come to this decision. There has been a  long line of folks proclaiming that the blog is dying in favor of the Lifestream. In my end of year roundup for 2008 I highlighted several of those that were predicting the transiton. This included ReadWriteWeb, Wired, and Yongfook who is the author of the popular SweetCron Lifestreaming software.

Lets get this out of the way quickly. While I may be one of the biggest Lifestreaming evangelists cheerleaders out there, I still would never consider killing my blog in favor of Lifestreaming. My initial love affair with Lifestreaming was due to the efficiency and elegance of providing content I created using multiple external web services. But for the most part I have a Lifestream to share a rich online diary that I can also use to reflect upon my past. But my Lifestreaming is only one method for how I want to tell stories whereas blogging provides a different one.

So why are many replacing their blogs with Lifestreaming? I think prior to the advent of Lifestraming and its tools many people created blogs with the sole purpose of providing a diary. In this case, I think it makes total sense to make the swtich. But this is only a portion of the blogging population. So what else is fueling this movement? I believe its a combination of several factors that are either individually or combined making it compelling.

Here’s a few:

  • Lifestreaming tools and services have gotten very good
  • Mobile apps provide great functionality for creating and posting Lifestreaming content
  • The popularity of Twitter and other micro blogging services have consumed folks
  • Facebook has turned into a Lifestreaming platform
  • The advent of the real-time web has transformed user behavior (being quick and first has become more important than anything)
  • Quanity has appeared to have trumped quality (volume! volume! volume!)
  • People are embracing the lazy web

It appears that Steve’s conversion has really struck a chord and possibly become a wake up call for many folks. Robert Scoble who has been continously harassed about spending too much time using Twitter and FriendFeed and having neglected his long form went in the opposite direction stating his need to return to blogging. Louis Gray wrote a post stating that your blog is the foundation of all your activity which I fully agree with. I’ve had krynsky.com since 1998 and it will probably continue to be my main hub forever. Jeremiah Owyang also provided some good insight into Steve’s move along with the details of the ribbing he gave Scoble.

I read many more reactions out there on Steve’s announcement, but of all the banter I found, my favorite commentary came from Stuart Foster. He wrote a nice piece of which I fully agree with the following:

I’m not discounting any medium of communication. I’m merely urging those with interesting thoughts not to limit themselves to a more concise medium. Lifestreams are a great supplement to your blog and other long form thoughts. They should not be a replacement.

You can read some more of Steve’s subsequent posts on his switch to Lifestreaming which include:

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About Mark Krynsky

I created Lifestream Blog and hope you enjoy the site. I'm always looking for contributors so contact me if you're interested. You can follow the rest of what I like to write about at my personal site or follow me on Twitter or Facebook