lifestream

Blogs – A Lifestream Of Links

It wasn’t too long ago when my poll asking if blogging was dying concluded with an astounding NO. BookTwo.org recently published an article highlighting a change that is taking place within the blogosphere.

I’ve noticed a trend in longtime bloggers, which I’m certainly a part of. Blogging less, linking more, generally winding down the straight blog in favour of a more distributed presence via Twitter, Delicious, videoblog apps like Seesmic. Some of these may be fed through the blog, like Booktwo’s RSS links, but it’s all getting a bit bitty. “I think RSS is one of the main reasons for this (perceived) decline in blogging. We don’t visit each others’ sites, so it’s less obvious when the frequency declines. As more small social apps like Twitter, and larger ones like Facebook, increase their reach, we don’t need blogs as our home pages either.

“It’s good to have a place to put these things, thoughts, articles &c. But I think it’s time, and I think it’s happening, that the delivery mechanism was stripped down. RSS might be the answer: people are starting to have ‘lifefeeds’ more and more, which aggregate everything they’re doing.

Unfortunately, BookTwo is on to something. What’s also interesting to note, is that this article falls in line with Steve Spaldings take on where blogging is heading.

Microblogging will be the critical change in the way we write in Web 3.0. Imagine a world where your mobile phone, your email, and you television could all produce feedback that could easily be pushed to any or all blogging platforms. If you take a picture from your smart-phone, it would be automatically tagged, bagged and forwarded to your “lifestream”. If you rated a television show that you were watching, your review would be forwarded into the stream.

This is the type of seamless integration that will finally bring the concept of blogging to the masses. Posts will become shorter and more topical, the world of rehashing the meme will be replaced by one where life and news generation go hand in hand. Blogging won’t be a hobby reserved for internet enthusiasts, but a past time for the MySpace generation.

Of course, the allure of any individual blog would be much more limited. As the popularity of micro-blogging explodes, more and more basically “unreadable” blog will start to populate the blogosphere. It’s not hard to imagine a world where the vast majority of your posts amount to, “stuck in traffic, ugh…”

That last sentence in Steves take on blogging is the one that concerns me the most. The last thing I want the blogosphere to turn into is a series of links with little substance. I want to see bloggers continue to write their opinions, reporting on things in their own way, and continue to be the driving force behind new media. I want to continue to see quality content written by someone other than big media properties. Continue to blog and if you need to share links, create a link blog as I illustrated how to do in a previous article.

I don’t want to see everyone’s blog turn into a lifestream of links. Do you?

Lifestreaming Service FriendFeed Reviewed

FriendFeed.com Logo

Company Background:

FriendFeed is one of the newest startups to come swinging out of the gate, that promises to streamline your myriad of web activities into one, easy to digest stream. This is sometimes referred to as, Lifestreaming. FriendFeed was founded by Bret Taylor, Jim Norris, Paul Buchheit and Sanjeev Sing Prior to Google, Bret worked at Reactivity, Paul worked at Intel and Sanjeev worked at Thirdvoice.com. Bret, Jim and Sanjeev hold Computer Science degrees from Stanford University and Paul holds a Computer Science degree from Case Western Reserve University.

Signing In:

Unlike most other services I sign up to beta test, FriendFeed actually sent me a an invitation code immediately after signing up. The signup process consisted of the usual information with one exception. Password, Email and Username were the usual culprits but you can also choose your Nickname which will also be the name attached to your FriendFeed sub domain. For example, mine is http://friendfeed.com/jeffro2pt0 with Jeffro2pt0 being my nickname. So far, FriendFeed does not support logging in via OpenID. Continue reading →

FriendFeed Another LifeStreamer

FriendFeed Logo

As reported by TechCrunch today, four ex-googlers have started their own company called FriendFeed. FriendFeed aims to aggregate user data that is usually stored on a wide variety of social networking sites, into one easy to manage stream of data. The presentation of this data looks like it will be displayed in the same way that the Facebook News Feed is shown.

The question I have for all of you is, Hasn’t Jaiku been one of the first to accomplish this feat in the form of RSS feeds and aggregating them to one account? Jaiku even gives you the oppurtunity to pick which feeds of an individual that you want to subscribe to.

Because this company was started by four ex-googlers, do you think this company will take off like a rocket or will it sink like an anchor?

Jaiku Lifestream or Feed Aggregator?

http://www.jaiku.comI was browsing the official Jaiku channel where users can voice their opinions, suggestions, and offer direct feedback concerning the Jaiku service. TheGirlInTheCafe published an interesting thought,

 

I wonder if it is worrying that 90% of the posts on Jaiku seems to come from imported feeds. That would turn it into a feed aggregator.

Excellent observation if I must say so myself. One of Jaikus biggest selling points is that it offers the ability to take your online presence and display it on one page, AKA, LifeStreaming. Users can import feeds from various sites that they are associated with onto their Jaiku page. When one of those sites are updated, the update is published not only on the users Jaiku page, but it can also be viewed on the Jaiku homepage.

Feed updates that are displayed on the Jaiku explore page as a direct result of your online activities are viewed as an acceptable use of Jaiku. In fact, this is generally how the service is supposed to be used. However, what is beginning to happen is that the Jaiku explore page is starting to become bombarded with a ton of feed posts which have nothing to do with the actual user. These types of posts are taking over the front page, leaving very little room for displaying actual messages through the Jaiku service.

There are two things I foresee Jaiku doing to alleviate this problem. (A) Jaiku could only show member Jaikus on the Explore page. (B) Jaiku could simply add a tab to the Explore page which will only show users Jaikus without showing any other information.

Seems simple enough to me and I have to agree, that Jaiku is starting to look more like a feed aggregator than a Lifestream service. Let me know how you would solve this problem.

Solve Your Web2pt0 Identity Crisis With Onxiam

Onxiam.com LogoCreating accounts on new Web 2.0 sites is the easy part as most sites only require an email address and a username however, managing all of those accounts can be tough.

 

Onxiam pronounced (ON-X-I-AM), a Web 2.0 service aimed at consolidating all of your online identities into one simple page makes managing all of those accounts a breeze by allowing you to promote a single identity which provides links to all of your other online identities. Simply put, this service places your online presence onto one page so that instead of telling friends and family where you are and what your username is on a particular website, you simply send them one link which provides all of the information they need such as your username on a particular service.

Onxiam was created by Kevin Poulsen based out of Chicago, Illinois.

As I joined more and more online communities, I found myself constantly saying to people “On [website] I am [name].” This was getting tiresome, and I thought that there just had to be a better way of promoting myself to my friends, my family and to the online world as a whole.

I looked around but didn’t find anything, so I decided to build it myself. “Kevin Poulsen”

 

The Account Process:

Setting up a new account is fairly straight forward. As with most Web 2.0 sites you need to provide an email address, username and a password. Once the supplied information is provided you will automatically be logged into the site and will be presented with a page that provides a complimentary greeting. From this page, you can add what Onxiam calls IDENTITIES to your account.

 

The Social Aspect:

The Onxiam Invite service which provides a way for registered users to invite their friends to join

Although Onxiam fails to provide a way for registered users to communicate with each other through the service itself, knowing your friends identities on various services such as AIM or SKYPE allows you to get in contact with those individuals, indirectly because of Onxiam. If you perform a search and discover that one of your friends is not listed as being a registered member, be sure to send them an email invitation through the Onxiam invite service. The invitation will contain some generic text stating that you would like that person to join the service. Registered users can also add websites that are not already listed in the site directory. Once a site is added, it is instantly available for other users to use however, items such as icons and the ability to link directly to user profile pages does take some time to be added to the site.

 

Identity Crisis:

One thing to keep in mind while creating your identities is that you do have the option of making them PRIVATE which is great considering you may not want people following you around the net EVERYWHERE you go. From your Onxiam home page, click on the ADD link which is underneath the text MY INDENTITIES. The drop-down list contains what seems like a never ending list of all of the different sites and services currently in the Onxiam database. Once you select the site your apart of, type in your username for that site into the box on the right hand side. If you want this entry to be private, be sure to uncheck the box labeled PUBLIC. If you fail to uncheck this box, the account information will be listed in your public profile. Once you have that information typed in, press the ADD button. Your identity for that specific website will now be listed on your Onxiam home page.

 

My Opinion

This service is incredibly easy to use and although some new competition in this consolidating space has recently arrived (findmeon.com) Onxiam provides a simple, clear way of putting your entire online presence onto one page. So far, I have yet to come across a service that makes this process any easier.

One of the disconcerting things about this service is that the development blog has gone silent. The last post published on the dev blog dates back to October 31, 2006. Although Keven has built a service that in many ways can run on it’s own, it would be nice to see a fairly updated development blog to prevent users from creating a mentality that the service is dead. Another surprising fact is that the service is still free to use and is void of advertising. I’m not sure how much of being ad free will play into Onxiam’s future but it is refreshing to see a simple service that is not plastered with ads.

 

Conclusion

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Adam Jackson from http://www.adamjacksonlive.com for pointing me to this site. In a recent DailyTechTalk Talkcast I asked Adam if there were any Web 2.0 site/service consolidation services out there and this is the one he pointed me to. Good choice Adam.

On my quest to join all of the Web 2.0 sites and services on the net, Onxiam is like a godsend to me. I think of it as being everywhere on the net from one place. Be sure to bookmark http://www.onxiam.com/people/Jeffro2pt0/ if you have the chance to keep tabs on me. If you have an even better solution be sure to post it in the comments.