Lifestreaming: The New

Future of Blogging?
Erin Blaskie
www.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