The Steve Rubel Stream

Insights on emerging technologies and trends.

Presentation: Communicating in the Age of Streams

Last week during the launch of Seesmic Look in New York, I gave a presentation on communicating in the age of streams. You can watch the video here or below (if for some reason the embedded video doesn't go direct to my part of the talk, simply scroll to the 1:24:04 minute mark). My slides can be found here. I have embedded them below as well with the YouTube video too.

A quick summary ...

All of us - whether you're a stay at home mom or an executive - are going to have to cope with the firehose. There's more information coming at us than we can handle. Information will scale. Human attention is finite. This presents a major challenges to those of us who are in the attention business. It's like 25 lanes of traffic trying to squeeze into the Lincoln Tunnel all it once. Your marketing campaign is just one bus.

To mitigate this ongoing trend of streams, communicators will need to: 1) be as ubiquitous as possible, 2) adopt multiple messages, stories and formats and 3) make sure you allow your employees to get out there - in other words, use the force, don't fight it.

More in the embedded media below.

Filed under  attention   attention crash   events   Lifestreaming   marketing   PR   presentations   streams   video  
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Posted 1 month ago

Three Ideas for 2010 Part III: Lifelogging and Self Tracking

Happy 2010! Note this is the third in a three-part series on ideas anyone can ride in 2010 and beyond. - part I is here and part II is here.


Image credit: Evernote Web site

One of the great mindset shifts from the last decade is that today, finally, people of all walks are recognizing that what gets captured and measured gets managed (to quote Peter Drucker).

In 2010 and beyond we will become far more savvier about using data (both our own and aggregate streams) to make decisions large and small. Those who commit themselves to becoming data-driven will be in the best position to succeed both in business and in life - just ask Google. Consider leading yourself and inspire others to do live and work the same. In 2010 I am personally trying to apply data-driven tools, thinking and insights to all of my goals.

One way anyone become more data-driven by logging his/her life. This isn't a new idea. In fact, it's ancient. Consider former senator Bob Graham. He takes meticulous daily notes on the mundane to foreign policy in notebooks and has done so for decades.

"I start each month with a fresh notebook, the color which would follow the last notebook of the previous month.  On the inside cover of the notebook I write the information which will determine its overall position in the total collection of notebooks (the first notebook used in July of 2009 would be 7/09A), the date upon which the notebook was commenced and completed, and the information which would assist in recovery of the notebook should it be lost (address, home-office-cell numbers and email address) and, finally, an index of when the sections of notebook were completed by my having finished the “things to do” lists  in that notebook."

Self-tracking goes beyond just capture, though. You need to use the data to glean insights. Google Spreadsheets has a great way to do this with their gadgets. You can even set up forms for to make capturing the data even easier. For more on this topic, read Chris Brogan's "three words," Flowing Data and The Quantified Self. Other tools to look at include 23andMeNike PlusEvernote and a host of others

Oh and if you think this is just for geeks, think again. Even parents are obsessed with data. For more, see the video embedded below or here.

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There's no doubt in my mind that if you dedicate yourself to using data wisely to plan and measure you will succeed no matter what your goals are. And, increasingly, the tools to make this happen are getting easier and more accessible all the time.

Filed under  Data   essays   Evernote   Ideas   lifehacks   lifelogging   Lifestreaming   metrics   self-tracking  
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Posted 2 months ago

The Next Big Trend? It's All About Curation

Fact: Information sources are exploding. More information will be created in 2009 than all prior years.

Fact: Attention is finite. We're becoming media agnostic, but when we're interested in something we dig down into our interests.

This is why I and others like Robert Scoble are really excited about digital curation. Facebook and Twitter lists are one level of curation. However, there are others. Posterous and Tumblr are fantastic platforms for soliciting contributions from groups of people around a shared interest. And they're platforms that will enable all of us to curate together.

Here are a handful of places where you can see curation at work (more in the gallery below as well) ...
  • My Parents Were Awesome is a group-contributed tumbelog that honors our elders. It has received national recognition.
  • PopURLs Brown by UPS curates information all around business news (UPS is an Edelman client but we didn't build this site)
  • Microsoft and Nissan have built entire brandstreaming sites that showcase conversations around their brand (Edelman built the Nissan site)
  • Sawhorse Media is creating a next generation media company by curating tweets in different topics like pets and now lists too
  • IBM is using Tumblr to curate ideas for a smarter planet
Do you agree that curation - both automated and human-powered - is the next big thing? This isn't just aggregation. As I wrote in my initial post on the subject it's about separating art from junk online.

           
Click here to download:
The_Next_BIg_Trend_Its_All_Abo.zip (1779 KB)

Filed under  brandstreaming   curation   lifestreaming   Posterous   trends   Tumblr  
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Posted 4 months ago

Julio Ojeda-Zapata on the Potential for Newspaper Storystreaming

Julio Ojeda-Zapata explainsl how the St. Paul Pioneer Press used Posterous to solicit photos from readers in reporting the Packers-Vikings game over the weekend.

Filed under  Lifestreaming   newspapers   posterous  
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Posted 4 months ago

Interviews on Blogging and Productivity

Here are two fresh interviews that might be of interest. The first covers blogging's place in a microblog world. The second captures the essence of my productivity system, how I work and the tools I use

 

Filed under  blogs   interviews   Lifestreaming   microblogging   productivity   Twitter  
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Posted 4 months ago

The State of the Blogosphere 2009 Edition

Technorati is out with their annual report on the state of blogging. As usual it's packed with statistics. Notably this year it shows how some are taking a hub and spoke approach by promoting their blogs on other social networks.

I was interviewed for the piece, which you can find here. We cover the value of the hub and spoke model, my move to Posterous and lifestreaming and what's next for PR and blogging.

Filed under  blogs   lifestreaming   stats  
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Posted 5 months ago

Posterous Catches Friendfeed

Since it was acquired, I have basically abandoned Friendfeed. I love the service, but I am waiting to see how the team integrates it into Facebook.

Unsurprisingly, traffic to the Friendfeed site has plummeted since the acquisition in August. And Posterous now has nearly as much traffic (Posterous is the red line above), but trails Tumblr by a wide margin and Twitter by light years.

What does this say about the future of lifestreaming services? I still see a big space in between in between blogs and Twitter that allows you to have a hub and spoke strategy and post in multiple formats. That's one reason I am bullish about both Posterous and Tumblr.

Filed under  Friendfeed   Lifestreaming   posterous   stats  
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Posted 5 months ago

Debate: Can You Still Build a Profitable Blog?

Earlier this week I appeared on Canadian TV (specifically BNN.ca) where I discussed blogging vs. lifestreaming with Lainey Lui of Laineygossip.com and eTalk. During the interview I maintained that it's difficult today to build a profitable blog since many of the big niches are taken. Lainey disagreed. What's your view?

Filed under  blogs   influence   lifestreaming   video  
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Posted 5 months ago

Lifestreaming Lessons - a 90-Day Report

As many of you are aware, three months ago I did something that some considered virtual heresy. After five years and 5300 posts I shuttered my blog, Micro Persuasion, in favor of this lifestream. I set out to find a middle ground between a blog and a tweet. I longed for a new approach where I could post shorter items, more often and in more visual and creative ways. I wanted to establish a place where we could probe technology - like Da Vinci once did on his own - but do so together and daily. Posterous has done a great job on the tech side, but I want to elevate my game.

So far, I am extremely pleased with my approach, but I am never one to be satisfied. The basic formula is working well. I use this site as a launching pad to initiate many of my social streams and then I go and engage in conversations around these out in the hubs where it syndicated. Still, I am also posting content often directly into Facebook and Twitter without starting it here. I may play with the formula so that everything at least begins here.

So what's missing? Well, the content is still too text heavy. Posterous lets you do so many things with audio, video, photos and text. I keep a list of formats I want to try. However, I still resort back to text too often and, what's more, I haven't been able to post daily as I had hoped. I am close, but I can do better.

Last night on the Long Island Railroad I drew up this mindmap in Mindnode on my iPhone. I appreciate alliteration. How would you feel about a structure like this where I theme the content based on the day of the week? Monday we tackle models and/or mindmaps, Tuesday we talk trends, etc. I want to post more often and more creatively than just writing.

Filed under  lifestreaming  
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Posted 6 months ago

AOL Integrates Lifestreaming into AIM for the iPhone

One of the big things that Facebook brings to the age of streams is instant messaging and presence indicators - the ability to see who is online right now and active on the service so you can chat in real time. I hope that sites like Twitter (and its ecosystem of apps) do the same. My bet is that they will soon tie into IM networks more in the near future.

In the meantime, I am very interested in what AOL has been up to lately in bringing lifestreaming and social content the other direction - into IM clients that millions already use. This isn't just a big user base but they're also mainstream users too. Now it's all coming in the iPhone.

With the integration of lifestreaming into the mobile IM client and the potential to create even more value through location-based social networking services, this entire space is about to get a lot more interesting. Keep an eye on the big IM nets and their massive social graphs. They are sleeping giants that are waking up to the potential here.

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Posted 6 months ago