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 • erin@erinblaskie.com

• Slide deck is uploaded and available at:www.slideshare.net/erinblaskie