Do you share your Lifestream?
Can people tell what you are interested in, the things you talk about, what you study, what entertains you and how you relate to other people? Your online activity reveals a lot. Is anyone watching and listening?
You bet!
Social Network Sharing = Lifestream
Your thoughts, activities, preferences, interests, hobbies are revealed through your social network sharing. You create a lifestream that is like a vapor trail from a plane. You may not see the plane anymore, but you see the residual steam delineating its path.
Social media is your atmosphere. Your activity is the residual lifestream when you:
- Post status updates on Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceBook;
- Bookmark and tag posts on Delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit;
- Upload photos to Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket;
- Share videos on YouTube, Vimeo, Ustream.
Your online activity lingers like a plane’s vapor trails. However, search engines index your sharing, so keep it mind that the analogy ends there. What you do, say, share, bookmark and upload does not evaporate. Google cache keeps track of your previous paths.
Flickr Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robwallace/238999419
Social Aggregators
Your stream of online activity, your lifestream, is posted into feeds across the Internet. (Your activity may also be “scraped” and copied as site content.) Various websites “aggregate” your online activity by consolidating your sharing on services and pulling your “vapor trails,” aka “feeds,” into one site. These are known as Social Aggregators.
Don’t think your “friends” are the only ones listening to what you share!
FriendFeed and MyBlogLog are two social aggregators that pull feeds from multiple social networks into a single destination. Digsby is a tool that integrates instant messaging, email and social media accounts in ongoing status update windows while you’re logged in. (Whole posts could be written about each.) There are many social aggregators from which to choose.
Why Aggregate?
What’s the point? Why do people want to aggregate feeds? Why do we subscribe to lifestreams?
- Community
- Knowledge
- Curiosity
- Voyeurism
We want to know what others are doing. We gain knowledge about more than their personal lives. Those who follow thought leaders in their industry may use social aggregators as an RSS, as a feed to stay current on latest news.
We’re curious by nature, and social aggregators give us a peak into the lives of others.
MyBlogLog & FriendFeed Widgets
MyBlogLog has a “New with Me” widget that pulls multiple services together so you can share on a blog.
FriendFeed has a widget that does the same thing. It feeds social networking activity and services you aggregate through FriendFeed into your blog.
Below is an example of some of the services one can decide to “stream” and share online activity through MyBlogLog:
MyBlogLog Services for "New with Me" Widget
The MyBlogLog “New with Me” Widget can be placed in WordPress blog sidebar or full-screen as body content on a page.
I’m playing with these widgets as I rebuild DanaLookadoo.com. View my Lifestream page to see MyBlogLog and FriendFeed “feeding” my online activity.
Why Share your Online Activity?
The answer varies per individual. I am plugged into social networking primarily to connect with people in the search industry, yet I’ve made friendships with others that have broadened my horizons. I follow people who share about topics in which I’m interested.
Your online social network sharing is your lifestream, your vapor trail. I’m happy to share my trail, knowing it will be indexed in search engines. Actually, I’m counting on it!
I’m not expecting my Lifestream page will be that popular. However, if someone asks me what I’ve been doing lately, I’ll point them to Dana Lookadoo’s Lifestream.
{ 0 comments }