Jeremiah Owyang has a thought-provoking post today about whether or not blogging is evolving into life streams. He notes how bloggers like Robert Scoble and others are much more focused on the real-time web, while seemingly putting their blogs on the back burner or shutting them down altogether. It’s a great read and I encourage you to go over the Jeremiah’s blog and take it all in.
What I want to focus on for a bit is the concept of building community through these life streams, or through an aggregation of life streams. I’m not sure that it’s possible.
I am a big twitter user. I also use Friendfeed and a great deal of other social media platforms. I like the constant stream of fresh new content coming in. But I also know that I miss a whole lot of it and the stuff that I miss is pretty much gone forever for me.
I may go back a few hours on my twitter stream as time permits, but for the most part, I don’t. I miss 85% of the happenings on Friendfeed, but since so much of it is feeds from twitter, blogs, etc….chances are I may see it somewhere else. So to be fair, I’ll say I miss about 65% of the content streaming on FriendFeed.
Existing solely through life streams seems a bit disjointed to me.
The ultimate aggregation of your activity across 10 or more platforms is not a selling point in my book. Talk about noise. I do not believe that ones online presence is the sum of it’s parts, and that is what such aggregation suggests.
You can’t combine all of your activity into one place without somehow connecting the dots and expect people to latch on to you, or join your Tribe.
Now, I know that this may work for the superstars and we can see that it does.
But you will lose me if you resort solely to this kind of online presence. I am not saying that blogging is the only way. But your followers, readers and viewers sometimes deserve a complete thought with a beginning, middle and end. If you are providing that in your life stream, kudos to you. Maybe you will continue to build community, which for me is the ultimate goal.
What do you think? Are life streams a bit disjointed or am I way off-base here?
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June 29, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Meri Walker
Angela, I don’t think you’re one bit off-base here. Seems to be you’re right on! I don’t know what’s going to evolve next that will allow us to better integrate the real-time web with the asynchronous conversations, but something will. As you have pointed out, most of us are missing from 60-85% (or more) of the real-time streams our friends are offering. Unless you’re strapped to your computer, you can’t help but miss a lot of the real-time stream.
I think we all need to take our brains in for a metaphor-change pretty soon. A few weeks ago John Borthwick published a thoughtful piece called The Rise of Social Distribution Networks and in it he called for updating our thinking about the web from static and mostly one-way metaphors drawn from publishing and architecture (pages and sites) to streams.
(You can read the whole piece here: http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-the-rise-of-social-distribution-networks-2009-5)
The points Borthwick makes are not just abstract distinctions. They helped me see that we have an opportunity to process real-time and asynchronous lifestreams together – but differently.
We have to approach streams differently than we do pages or sites in order to get benefit from them. We dip our cups into streams when we need a drink (or take a plunge if we need to get wet all over) but the stream runs with or without us, 24/7. We don’t “master” streams and we don’t “comprehend” them, either. The real-time web is like a stream.
On the other hand, asynchronous conversations, including blogs and other kinds of content libraries, can be studied and reflected upon and noodled around and continued over time.
I can’t imagine any of us are going to be able to squeeze blogs and other kinds of deep content into the real-time web…not any time soon anyway. And I sure don’t want to see any of the thought leaders I’m learning with sacrifice the asynchronous parts of the ongoing conversation for the streaming parts, either.
This is a provocative topic! So glad you posted on it…Would love to hear what others are thinking about this crucial subject too… Fascinates me!
June 29, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Angela Connor
Meri!
Thanks so much for validating my stream of consciousness and adding so much more to the discussion. I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time and I’ve been wondering if my thoughts are more of the minority. I like what you said about not being at your computer all day (or NOT.) I cannot follow life streams. Not in the way they are produced and frankly, it’s now how I want all of my information. I am also worried about those I learn from going that route, like you. And thanks so much for the link to Borthwick’s piece. I’m heading there right now!
Angela
June 29, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Meri Walker
Angela, I dug a little deeper into your piece, following the link to Jeremiah Owyang’s blog and then from there to Steve Rubel’s blog – recently turned into a “lifestream.” The conversation around this choice Steve just made makes me laugh out loud.
I spent about 90 minutes today writing a post to my posterous blog – where I’m collecting stuff that falls between the lines of business and personal – in a lifestream. I haven’t posted the substantive interview I did last week to my business blog because things have been moving so fast over the last five days I haven’t had time. But, interestingly, I found time to post to the posterous lifestream today. Why? For all the same reasons that Steve Rubel outlined in his “apology” for converting his regular blog to a posterous stream just a few weeks ago.
Here’s a link to that post: http://www.steverubel.com/its-official-i-am-moving-from-blogging-to-lif
What’s most provocative about this topic for me is that I’ve truly been studying my thinking as I go back and forth between posting on the posterous and posting on my wordpress biz blog for the last 3.5 months or so… And I keep wishing I felt comfortable integrating both blogs into one platform… If I did it (maybe I should say when I do it…) it’s much more likely that I’ll follow the same route Steve’s taken than that I’ll punch the posterous blog up into WordPress.
Would love to hear what you and others think about Steve’s posting… and his attempt to bridge the gap between real-time and asynchronous conversation with a “lifestream” style blog.
June 30, 2009 at 3:08 am
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July 1, 2009 at 10:05 am
Roger C. Parker
Dear Angela:
Thank you for the way you continually challenge my perspective and offer new alternatives.
Through your book 18 Rules of Community Engagement book, and the way you’re not only teaching others, but you’re you’re also providing an excellent example of the success principles involved in online community building.
Thanks for the concise grounding in online community building that you offer in your book. I look forward to our interview this evening, http://tinyurl.com/AngelaC.
Roger
July 1, 2009 at 11:24 am
Angela Connor
Hello Roger: Thanks for stopping by. I am always happy to brainstorm on my blog and sometimes throw out a complete stream of consciousness and let others validate it, or tear it apart even. I appreciate your support of the book and I am truly psyched about our call tonight!