Scott M. Iseman’s Lifestream

The post you are about to read or skim, is a blog. It is intended to be a blog. But, I am posting it as part of a "lifestream".

During the years 2002 to 2005 when the blogosphere began to take off in popularity and achieve cultural acceptance, (click Wikipedia's History of Blogging for more) I was extensively traveling the United States, following my corporate career journey. Much intrigued with the blogosphere as it gained momentum, I knew blogging would be something I'd get to one day, when the career slowed down. In April 2008, after launching the company website, I started blogging.

According to Blog World Expo, 12 million people Americans actively blog, while 57 million Americans read blogs. Additional blogging statistics can be referenced here: Blog World Expo Blogging Statistics

The way I see it, blogging is a creative vehicle where the user can communicate, educate, inform, report the news, or just journal. Most anyone can blog, but not everyone wants to write, so blogging is not for everyone. Yet, with the rise of Twitter, and with 200 million people now on Facebook, the increasing popularity of status updates (aka microblogging), is driving blogging into an evolutionary new era.

I've enjoyed watching Steve Rubel, (Director of Insights for Edelman Digital) who is a popular, well respected PR blogger embark on a gusty move, by walking away from the traditional path of blogging, and evolve to "lifestreaming" using Posterous, a nearly one year old social networking service, launched in July 2008.

Lifestreaming is simple. Really.

Lifestreaming is a platform that aggregates (a hub of sorts) most to all of your social networking content into one site. Friendfeed is popular example of an aggregate. To learn more about lifestreaming, click here: The Steve Rubel Lifestream.

For a counter perspective on blogging, here is a blog by Louis Gray called: "Blogging is Still The Foundation In a World of Streams. However, as Steve Rubel fairly points out in his June 28th post Frequently Asked Questions About This Lifestream about blogging: "For one, people don't have time to read as much as they used to. There's too much competing for our attention. This means you need to be creative to stand out."

To blog, or to lifestream? Now at a crossroads, I begin to soul search. This past weekend, just as I launch a new blog on wordpress, posterous begins to sink into my mind as a possibility I really should explore before getting too involved with Wordpress. It quickly became a tough internal debate, which posed for me, a nagging question: "Is blogging becoming a dated, fading communication vehicle, and if so, am I missing out the potential of lifestreaming? Or, are both blogging and lifestreaming relevant for the times, but the individual or business should discover the best fit for their own needs?"

The more I dug into posterous, the more I began to realize, everything I am publishing on my company website, can be done on the posterous site. Except, in a much more efficient way, through e-mail or web posting.

So, I've decided to take a risk, and start operating the Ace Marketing Agency as a lifestreaming website, via posterous. Meanwhile I'll blog journalism through Wordpress. Overtime, either blogging or lifestreaming may begin to emerge as my preferred writing vehicle, or each will co-exist with their own purpose. Feeling a bit adventurous, so I look forward to the discovery process.

Here goes...