There is a lot of buzz and activity around social networking. One of the most interesting opportunities emerging out of this phenomenon is Lifestreaming. When people hang out with friends online they talk about music, review movies, share travel stories, exchange photos, discuss videogames, recommend books and chat about life. Lifestreaming offers the ability to store and broadcast this information exchange. People now have the ability to create, aggregate and publish their interests and activities. By leveraging feeds to publish information - people are creating content that reflects their life. This is Lifestreaming - this time-ordered flow of information (akin to a living diary) about a person's life.
A Lifestream is only limited by the content and sources each person defines. People typically choose a few online services that track their activities such as Flickr (photos they take), Last.fm (music they like), and Del.icio.us (bookmarking). These online services provide RSS feeds of a person's activities - these feeds are enabling Lifestreaming. Lifestreaming is the aggregation and merging of multiple RSS feeds into a single point of entry. Once the feeds are setup, the data is added automatically to a Lifestream. The output is a concentrated unique stream of information comprised of a person's ideas, beliefs, passions, thoughts, and interests - that defines who they are.
Thanks to the popularity of sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Myspace and FriendFeed, the act of Lifestreaming offers a new way to keep people informed - whether for business, friendship or family. As a result, each Lifestream has its followers, the audience. Lifestreams make recommendations and keep followers updated and informed. People now have the ability to self promote and re-broadcast content and online media services via a single point of access, which they control, out to their followers. And - critical to the value of a Lifestream, is the ability to leverage this content for search, discovery, and networking. As a result, Lifestreams become human powered recommendation engines.
With Lifestreaming, people now have the ability to subscribe to people they trust who have already chosen and filtered content for them. Followers of Lifestreams are by default, leveraging a human filter to access information. By selectively following Lifestreams people are changing how they access information - people vs. technology - acting as the filter and search engine mechanism. Lifestreaming can be understood as the ultimate human filter.
So, what does this mean to publishers, advertisers, and brands? Lifestreaming is causing a paradigm shift. Just as RSS feeds have changed how users consume their online information, Lifestreaming is evolving as the next generation of media consumption and social networking. The major shift going forward - people (their Lifestreams) acting as the online information filter. Why is this? Because people will subscribe to people (to Lifestreams) to access information - information that has already been filtered. As a result, publishers have a key opportunity to leverage Lifestreams as a new traffic driver. Advertisers have the potential to communicate with this new channel - talking to a captive and trusting audience. And brands have a new model to leverage when defining themselves.
RSS feeds are one of the critical building blocks of Lifestreaming. Brands who have an understanding of what is RSS and how to effectively use it are positioned to best leverage this new channel. Analytics are the key to understanding the Lifestream audiences and needed to target appropriate effective messaging. This is also why it is critical that content pushed through this channel informs, educates, and entertains if the messages are to find success being seen and heard. This is one of the first times; publishers and advertisers alike are being invited into their audiences' personal and private online conversations.
Think of a Lifestream as an interactive digital diary. Then you will understand why Lifestreaming is gaining momentum within the social networking community and changing social media advertising. People are very excited about aggregating all of their information in one place. With all the different sites available - this just makes sense. Whether advertisers and publishers will learn quickly enough how to leverage this captive audience who is choosing them, choosing their content and influencing their followers - well - only time will tell.
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