Lifestreaming: Evolving the Model from Import and Aggregate to Hub and Spokes
Lifestreaming started out initially as a model that revolved around importation and aggregation: a place to roll-up all your streams. But that's changing.
Now that Facebook acquired Friendfeed and the noise on Twitter is at near cacophonous levels, I am seeing a new model emerge for lifestreaming. This one centers on using a site as your hub, having it syndicate out to all your spokes (where you engage around it) and then bringing some of the conversation back to your site. It also seems to help people focus their content in more useful ways.
Mark Krynsky, who I had a chance to meet in LA last week at XPrize, summarizes this shift for lifestreaming nicely in this post. Here's how he diagrammed it...
And this closely mirrors what others, like our creative director Jared Hendler, Fast Company and others have observed about Posterous.
Facebook, Twitter and RSS all have a big problem - too much noise, not enough signal. This new approach for lifestreaming, however, coupled with Posterous' outstanding reader (depicted below) is forcing me to make smart choices about who I follow. I am finding myself turning more to the Posterous community for cool stuff since, they too, seem to recognize that too much nose is bad, signal is good.
Maybe I am crazy, but I think the simplicity of the Posterous platform - which helps us get closer to signals and away from noise - will be the next site to capture the hearts and minds of the digerati, particularly as they tire of the noise.
