The Steve Rubel Lifestream

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June 26, 2009

A Lifestreaming Workflow

Here's how I've set up my lifestreaming flow...

Capture:: This is where I collect my inspiration for content and create it. I am increasingly using Friendfeed as a front-end filter for all my social network content. I read feeds in Google Reader. I build mindmaps using Mindmeister and Mindnode. Finally, I create media on my iPhone - text using WriteRoom, sound using the voice recorder, and photos/videos using the camera.

Process:: Everything lands in Gmail and/or Evernote. I email feed items to myself that get tagged. I subscribe to certain Friendfeed lists that I have set up in Gmail. Finally, I am experimenting using Zemanta to find related content.

Share and Connect:: Then I email items into Posterous - text, images, audio, videos. These automatically populate certain social networks depending on the address I send them to (this is a Posterous feature). Comments come back to me in Gmail both on the site and through searches. I learn what you have to say and then that too gets stored.

What do you think?

 

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Comments (61)

Jun 26, 2009
Christopher Gizzi said...
Why sent content to Gmail? Why not send to Posterous from the source data? It looks like there is one extra step in the process that seems unnecessary.

Thanks for showing this, though! I'm going to replicate this if I can to see if Posterous can replace the lifestream I've set up on my blog.

Jun 26, 2009
Steve Rubel said...
@Chris it needs to get processed first. And to me if I am sending it in from a Gmail address, that's the same thing.
Jun 26, 2009
Sergio Raposo said...
Sounds good, but it's a lot of work. I'm not sure how deep I'm going into all this. Anyway, it's an interesting way.
Jun 26, 2009
Christopher Gizzi said...
Is the process automatic? Do you have filters and routing rules in place to forward content or is it manual so you can filter the info yourself? I suppose process is really where you digest the content and come up with your own take on things.
Jun 26, 2009
Steve Rubel said...
@Chris, no there isn't. It still requires human intervention.
Jun 26, 2009
Thomas Chai said...
I am still kinda at odds choosing between friendfeed and posterous as my centralize lifestream
Jun 26, 2009
Bob Morris said...
Social networking streaming will increasingly supplant just blogs and websites. You're definitely pioneering here. I'm moving towards it too.
Jun 26, 2009
Jeff Marmins said...
Interesting process. Friendfeed has much of the capability of posterous for distribution and sharing. As well, facebook can automatically pull shared posts from Google reader and more. Why have posterous in the loop? I've experimented here and wonder if there's any efficency gain in one-to-many posting. I use ping.fm for this. thoughts?
Jun 26, 2009
rickg said...
Steve,

What about getting data out of Posterous if it goes away? Not sure how likely that is or isn't, but if it happens, your lifestream goes away or rather exists only on the services you've shared out via Posterous.

Jun 27, 2009
Marcus Brown said...
I use friendfeed in pretty much the same way Steve. I'm still playing with posterous (since I spotted it on your firendfeed yesterday) and after years of messing around with widgets, statcounters, API's and all of the other nonsense that got in the way of what I was trying to do, really like it a lot.

Like I said, early days for me on this platform - and I'm still looking for a naughty plan for it, but I like it the image and the process you explain above looks to be spot on to me.

Jun 27, 2009
Scotty Boyee said...
Using a Mac for iPhone sync? How about the volume if information overload from social network comments, both friend & fans? (like this) Does Twitter fit here? Where is the main portal for you work--to find you?
Jun 27, 2009
Scotty Boyee said...
Ok i had to go back to top of page to find blog link... counterintuitive... also clicking http://www.steverubel.com/ brought me back here... redirect? Your graphic logo posts are grainy in Safari in Win XP... will try the Mac version. Found your basic info in profile here, inc. PR co., reminds me of that ad co. that pioneered paperless, desk-less offices... don't like some aspects of info overload like Kawasaki's Twitter feeds. Would like to see an 'instrument' credit like music records have: keyboard, apps computer & iPhone, monitor setup, client list, etc.--do you give away del.ici.ous bookmarks, web browser used with what plug ins, etc.as you are the new rock/sports star...
Jun 27, 2009
Thomas Chai said...
@rickg you're right. with all this services like posterous, facebook, etc, what if the services no longers available. I still prefer to keep my thoughts in my own blogs so that forever it still belongs to me. That say I still think posterous has the potential of making it big, maybe as a central point to disburse informations to many sites you are maintaining.
Jun 27, 2009
Susan scrupski said...
Would love to see a video of this process, Steve.
Jun 27, 2009
eyalsela said...
1.Very useful post! 2.You might want to check out Lovely Charts (online diagramming software http://bit.ly/10pQap )
Jun 27, 2009
Jay McCormack said...
I feel a need a better editor than what gmail and the posterous editor supplies. Seriously, no image support in posterous when making a post? I tend to use LiveWriter for composition and it doesn't support posterous (yet). However conceptually i think may be where we will all head, but to a degree you can achieve similar concepts using friendfeed.
Jun 27, 2009
Norbert Mayer-Wittmann said...
Seems to0 brand-oriented for me.

I focus primarily on "natural-language" information storage + retrieval (aka "search")

Jun 27, 2009
Jeff Hilimire said...
Love the post, excellent look into how the experts are making sense of all the applications out there.

Question, why are you using WriteRoom on your phone instead of the Evernote app, since you use it on the web as well? Any reason? I find Evernote to be excellent in both formats.

Jun 27, 2009
Steve Rubel said...
Jeff I do. But I go back and forth. Writeroom has a nice word count feature. 

Jun 27, 2009
Danny Boyd said...
Your workflow seemed really interesting to me so I've reconfigured my processes to use the tools and methods that you outlined above to collect, edit, and distribute content. Testing with a few old items seems to indicate that posts are making it to their intended destinations without dupes. Thanks very much for sharing!
Jun 27, 2009
Alexander Ainslie @Aainslie said...
Steve: Any particular reason you use both Mindmeister and Mindnode?
Jun 27, 2009
Kevin Arth said...
I think the beauty of this service is the flexibility you have to write the quick hits and the longer pieces without having to select a different medium.
Jun 27, 2009
Bob Morris said...
One problem I'm finding. How to avoid duplicate posts on the endpoint site that is streamed to, in my case Friendfeed . For example, I want to post the same thing on Facebook, Twitter, and Friendfeed, but don't want the posts on FB and Twitter to get autoposted on FF too. I'm not sure there is an answer now, except to manually delete them
Jun 27, 2009
Kevin Arth said...
If this is your only workflow, why can't you just remove Twitter and FB from your FF account so that it won't auto-post?

Sent from my iPhone

Jun 27, 2009
Jeff Hilimire said...
Bob, Kevin is right, you just have to adjust your settings on FF to avoid the dups. I'm finding that for things like Yelp, Google Reader and delicious, I'm using FF to pull those in and then republish out to Twitter. So I tell FF to only publish those feeds to Twitter and nothing else (FF pulls in a lot of other feeds from me, but I don't want the dups to go back to Twitter).
Jun 27, 2009
Michele Lorito-Chase said...
Thanks for sharing this, Steve. Many of my clients ask about how to streamline their processes. So, I will certainly put this to the test. My question however is in your choice of mindmaps. Why do you use both MindMeister and MindNode. Comparatively speaking, what does one have over the other. Personally, I've been using X-Mind and considering exploring alternative options. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Jun 28, 2009
Steve Rubel said...
@Alex I use Mindnode when I am offline and for stuff I don't care to put in the cloud. 

Jun 28, 2009
Steve Rubel said...
@Bob here's how I do it. I email my posterous items to a posterous+Facebook address. When the posterous item lands in RSS it gets scooped up by Friendfeed which is configured to push it to Twitter. This ensures that the item only shows up once in each social sphere. Hope that helps.  

Jun 28, 2009
Maheshwaran Subramaniya said...
Steve, I guess I need to setup such a workflow. Coz, I have redundancy in the services. Posterous, FriendFeed has been configured to each other. So, posting redundantly.
Jun 28, 2009
Maheshwaran Subramaniya said...
BTW which tool did you use to make this pic?
Jun 28, 2009
Steve Rubel said...
I used Keynote. 

Jun 28, 2009
Maheshwaran Subramaniya said...
that was a nice one!
Jun 28, 2009
Charnita Fance said...
Well I guess this is one way of doing it...... With so many tools are there and more popping up each day it's hard to tell which process is best but I like your style.
Jun 28, 2009
marshal sandler said...
I respect your non selfish approach to showing bloggers HOW TO use applications in the real world since many people really need help in launching content-your shout out's for Zemanta Posterous and other apps is greatly appreciated-Now if we could all Just have you write our content- the rest would be easy !
Jun 28, 2009
Richard Treadway said...
Steve,
Great post and thanks for sharing. I started using Posterous after you explained how it created a hybrid between real-time Tweets and slower cycle analytical blog posts. I immediately got into trouble with multiple posts from duplicate services feeding FB, Twitter, etc. so I had to layout the information flow and decide which service should feed which network. All this suggests we are reaching the point in the evolution of the tools and the experience of the users that would enable the creation of a platform to manage content creation and dissemination.
Jun 28, 2009
Daniel Maher said...
Understand about half of this,but have just started using Posterous,which I think is GREAT!
Jun 28, 2009
Chris Sparno said...
Steve, its funny that we seem to have developed similar strategies. I think your approach is a little cleaner than mine so I might need to borrow some of your process and see if it works for me. Here is how I am doing it currently http://bit.ly/I19Cn (from my Tumblr). I have found that Twitter is best for announcing the content as I create it. And I am creating a little iPhone App to consolidate my online presence (hope to have that out soon). Tumblr has become my goto place for storing content I find interesting, the blog on WP tends to be more original content (90% of the time). Where I get stuck is using FriendFeed and Twitter. I cannot find a comfortable way to integrate those two into my work flow, though I keep trying. -Chris
Jun 28, 2009
Bob Morris said...
Kwvin, Jeff & Steve. Thanks! Didn't know FF could post to Twitter. That should help considerably. And decoupling some accounts will help too.
Jun 28, 2009
unixgroove said...
hmmmm, seems complicated...or maybe technology hasn't allowed us to have like 1 or 2 arrows, instead of your 7 arrows (referencing your flowchart)...I am looking forward to this being more integrated and frictionless
Jun 28, 2009
Krishna De said...
Your post was a good reminder to me of Posterous which I had set up almost a year ago. I know there are things that just don't make the cut for my blog and that I want to add multimedia when travelling and just with my Blackberry with me so I have gone back today to revisit Utterli and Posterous to decide which to use.

My only concern on using a hosted service is that no matter how good it is, if there is no back up my content could disappear overnight as happened with Magnol.ia earlier this year.

Have you considered this Steve or isn't it an issue for you?

Jun 28, 2009
Steve Rubel said...
@Krishna, I absolutely did. First, everything is backed up in Gmail. Second, Posterous has said that all content will be exportable. So, should they go belly up, I can port my content to Wordpress or some other solution.
Jun 29, 2009
@steveplunkett said...
fyi if you notice stuff accidentally showing up in search, it's due to emailing via gmail. =)
Jun 29, 2009
Jim Hirshfield said...
Steve - Nice set-up. The graphic probably makes it look more complicated than it really is, huh? I'm interested to hear how Zemanta is working out for you. Ideas and suggestions welcome.

Jim
VP BD @ Zemanta in NYC

Jun 29, 2009
Keith Childs said...
Steve, thanks for sharing your workflow. You might have got me started on something that I could get addicted to. Gmail as a central processor seems to be a good strategy- least likely to go belly-up IMHO.
Jun 29, 2009
Imran Anwar said...
Steve,

I think that is a very effective workflow. You could probably streamline it a bit but at this early stage when even the tools AND platforms are evolving I know it is hard to lock in some tools/practices.

But thanks for showing a great example of using technology to actually live your own life to the fullest potential. Great post. Thanks.

Imran
Will Your Life's Work "Live, Forever"?
It Will, At http://neternity.org

Jun 29, 2009
Joe Buhler said...
This looks like a great set-up, Steve. I've been following your suggestions on GMail for some time and use most of the tools you mention here. I'm thinking of going the same route.
Jun 29, 2009
Darron Barnes said...
Steve what a great post you have put together, its one illustrating many new services to me. I like the work flow and feel myself implementing this approach also. Consider me a new follower.

Wishing you much success Darron ;-)

Jun 29, 2009
gladman said...
My head is spinning with all this integration...I'll have to reread a few more times to figure out which works best.
Jun 30, 2009
eschnou said...
Well, I must say that from a reader point of view, your 'lifestream' looks really like a blog :-) Does it mean that it is just a change in your workflow, more than a change in the presentation layer ?

Have you considered real lifestreaming platforms such as storytlr.com, soup.io, sweetcron,... ? Check my site, this one is powered by storytlr: http://eschnou.com.

Jun 30, 2009
Bruce Keener said...
Okay, okay ... I am on the verge of setting up my own account on Posterous. I started with a negative view of this, but you are winning me over Steve.

Steve, just out of curiosity, how did you create the above graphic ... that is, what software package did you use? I like it. Very nicely done.

Jun 30, 2009
Steve Rubel said...
@Bruce. Cool! I used Keynote.
Jun 30, 2009
Bruce Keener said...
@Steve .... Thanks! Wow, you are quick. I've resisted getting KeyNote, but now I'm headed to the Apple site to grab it.
Jun 30, 2009
Scott Kingery said...
I've been using Tumblr. Any particular reason you chose Posterous?
Jun 30, 2009
Steve Rubel said...
@Scott Tumblr is great. But Posterous' email capes are amazing. Mashable did a good write up last night. Posterous vs. Tumblr: A Head to Head
Jul 01, 2009
Jan Richards said...
Very interesting - and helpful. I'm experimenting with improvements to my own workflow these days - so this is timely and gives me some new ideas to try.
Jul 01, 2009
sodani said...
Steve, what I liked about your old blog was that the posts were in-depth and well thought out. When I read one of your posts, I always knew that I would learn something interesting. With this new format, I find less value in the individual posts, and I think more time is required on the reader's part to sift through the post titles for ones that interest them.
Jul 01, 2009
Steve Rubel said...
@Sodani, I hear you. But the web is moving from a model of posts/pages to a real-time stream. And adapt I must.
Jul 04, 2009
Ian Betteridge said...
@sodani I think there's room for both. Posterous, as I've posted elsewhere, reminds me of blogging when I started back in 2001 - almost everyone used their blogs to point to other great stuff, rather than trying to write long, discursive essays or pseudo-news. So the way I use Posterous is that it's the hub for short stuff - links to other content, things that I like, and so on. Those get posted to my blog, too, via the "Publish everything" feature. On my blog, I also write longer stuff, too.
Jul 19, 2009
Brent Hopkins said...
whew, you must have an agile mind to keep up with all that stuff, Steve! I have just about abandoned Google Reader and now use Twitter and Facebook as my main "feed readers." Gmail is my hub too. Evernote Premium is a great catch-all database for just about everything. I wish I could weld Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and Evernote into one service so I could stop wasting time back and forth...
Oct 08, 2009
Stelios Landrakis said...
Steve i don't get the part from friendfeed to gmail,the first connection. How can you set up to receive gmail notification from specific friendfeedsubscriptions?
Nov 14, 2009
richisonm said...
Thanks for sharing blog. I like this.
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