The Steve Rubel Stream

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.

Do you play Foursquare? I have to admit I didn't until recently. But Foursquare, which is a mobile social networking site, is growing rapidly. I base this by the number of friend requests I receive (here's my profile). Some like David Armano are wisely asking if it's for real or not. Time will tell. I had breakfast yesterday with Dennis Crowley, Foursquare's co-founder to learn a little bit more. Here's my brief video interview with Dennis.