PR Blogger Stephen Waddington wrote a post where he denounces Lifestreaming. Stephen isn’t the first person to bash Lifestreaming. I see plenty of comments on the web that paint Lifestreaming in a negative way. Stephen just happens to be the catalyst that finally triggered me to write a post about it.
Here’s a quote from Stephen’s post:
Lifestreaming is dull. Most people simply don’t have interesting enough lives. At best it’s a sequential record of random events recorded in a sentence or an image. To claim its anything else misses the point…my stream of images is boring as hell. But I make no apologies. It’s a personal record and it’s not intended to engage.
Really? Who made you the definitive authority on what Lifestreaming is and how it should be used? And who do you choose to call out negatively as the poster boys for Lifestreaming? Robert Scoble and Steve Rubel. Really? You couldn’t have picked two worse examples to try and make your point.
Sure there are many that use Lifestreaming to simply post the personal actions that occur in one’s own life and it’s perfectly fine if that’s how they choose to do it. But there are also many people that choose to weave in links to media and content that is associated with their line of work or interests they have. They do this both to alert followers as well as engage them. By identifying these valuable people, and building a list of them to follow, you in turn create an incredibly powerful human curated content stream. Robert Scoble and Steve Rubel epitomize this class of users whose Lifestreams I follow and to condemn them for it is ridiculous.
Stephen also goes on to say the following:
Likewise Stuart Bruce says blogging – not lifestreaming – is the way forward if you want to develop thought leadership. He makes the point that blogs are far more Google friendly than micro-blogs.
Oh puhleeze, as if the 90’s web was better than what we have today and using these new tools diminishes thought leadership.
The real-time web is upon us and with it comes the ability and tools to push out bite sized chunks of content. Utilizing these methods in conjunction with long form blog posts is an essential way to get your message and expertise across today. If you choose to ignore Lifestreaming concepts and don’t evolve and embrace these new methods you will surely become an afterthought during the next phase of the web.
Lifestreaming is a term that doesn’t adequately describe the complex concept of aggregating content, manipulating it, and packaging it for presentation. Hopefully people will begin to look beyond the most common stereotypyped usage of them to realize the many different beneficial ways they can be utilized.
About “He makes the point that blogs are far more Google friendly than micro-blogs.” :
Few lifestreaming platform are optimized for search engines. But well-designed lifestream could win better score than basic blog, and promote all our personal content (posts, pictures, videos, playlists, etc) not only blog content.
Wikio team had removed my account (registered with my lifestream) from their french Top-Blogs directory last year because my lifestream had provided better pagerank than it could been ; they had scored me as top 10 french blogger instead I'm not so famous in France ^^
Hmm. I agree, but I'm not sold that this is the way forward. I think video is, and if that's true, both of you are missing the trend.
Hmm. I agree, but I'm not sold that this is the way forward. I think video is, and if that's true, both of you are missing the trend.
Hmm. I agree, but I'm not sold that this is the way forward. I think video is, and if that's true, both of you are missing the trend.
Missing what trend? Video is already an aspect of Lifestreaming. With more tools and devices making it easier to record and post, it will no doubt continue to gain momentum and we will see an increased volume of them in Lifestreams. But it won't take over as the sole content type being created.
This is my favorite part:
“And who do you choose to call out negatively as the poster boys for Lifestreaming? Robert Scoble and Steve Rubel. Really? You couldn’t have picked two worse examples to try and make your point.”
Well done, Mark.
The trend is that, as we have faster Internet access and become more comfortable in front of a camera, the dominant form of online content will be video. You're right, it will be a part of the stream, but what I am arguing is it will be the cornerstone of the stream and be our primary interaction on the web.
Maybe I'm a few years ahead of myself, but that's where I think it's going.
I think that a blog without any personal interjections can be a lot more authoritative on a small range of subjects that a Posterous or FriendFeed account which typically has a much less formal voice.
That being said I really agree with the thoughts in this post, I'm glad you wrote and I read.
– Mitch
Glad you liked it. Thanks Mitch.
Glad you liked it. Thanks Mitch.
I think that a blog without any personal interjections can be a lot more authoritative on a small range of subjects that a Posterous or FriendFeed account which typically has a much less formal voice.
That being said I really agree with the thoughts in this post, I'm glad you wrote and I read.
– Mitch
Pingback: Corcoran Brothers » Blog Archive » My Thoughts on Posterous as a Lifestreaming Platform