Facebook Resurrected The Lifestream and Killed Your Personal Blog

  By Tac Anderson | September 23, 2011 - 4:12 am |

A thought hit me when Facebook rolled out the Subscribe feature.  The first was that it allowed for asynchronous following relationships like on Twitter and Google+. Anyone can subscribe to your public updates.  They will of course see this in their own Facebook stream. I noted a year and a half ago that Facebook was trying to take on RSS readers and at first the Subscribe feature seemed to enable this even more, but for individual people.

But with the role out of the new “Stories” profile it’s obvious to me now that Facebook wants your Facebook profile to be the representation of you online. Here’s my profile with the new stories profile enabled. With that I’m wondering about the usefulness of personal blogs. Do you have a site where you upload pictures and make random thoughts and notes about life? It’s not a personal/professional blog like this one is for me and it’s not a site you want to sell advertising against or maybe make a book deal off of but it’s just meant to be a public site to share somethings with friends family and anyone who may find it interesting. So the question becomes, if so, why wouldn’t you just use Facebook?

I for one am not about to give up my personal blog because I think you need your own, “owned” identity. But most people don’t feel that way. Most people don’t care. For *most* people Facebook is going to be enough. And now with all their “new verbs” Facebook just became a better representation of your life than anything else out there. No it’s still not absolute but it’s getting closer.

The Lifestream Lives

Back in 2008 I wrote about how FriendFeed allowed you to tell a story by aggregating all of your activity across all the different services you use. It’s no coincidence that the new Facebook layout is a true lifestream. Lifestreaming was the approach that FriendFeed was taking, which Facebook acquired ages ago. I think it’s safe to say the new Facebook is heavily influenced by that team.

I find it ironic that Posterous announced their new layout as a away to reach “normal” users. I wonder if Posterous is regretting that decision because Facebook just crushed it.

Here’s what I expect to happen:

  • With the new layout and with the new subscribe feature, expect more people to use their Facebook profile the way many of us use blogs. This will become the default profile link for more and more people.
  • Expect to see new WordPress, Tumblr and Posterous designs that mimic Facebook’s new design, because it is really quite good.
  • Expect more and more neglected blogs across the web. If Facebook was smart, they’d provide a way for people to port their old content in.
What do you think? Do you still need a separate personal blog?

About Tac Anderson

Social media anthropologist. Communications strategist. Business model junkie. Chief blogger here at New Comm Biz.
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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=500327041 Vanessa Williams

    Tac - 

    I completely agree. I think personal blogs are going to slowly die. This design, combined with easy mobile use, is going to function how most need it to.

    What I find frustrating about the new format is that every post that had comments on it pretty much was selected to go into my timeline. For the most part, I didn’t feel like these posts were the best representation of me. Friends had an unrelated conversation back and forth on a post for example and it made “the cut.” 

    In addition, every hideous picture I was ever tagged in is now included and quite prominent. It’s going to take me a lot of time to edit it to make it appear remotely attractive, or anything like I want it look. 

    I also have posts that were made before privacy settings got more specific and were posted to “friends” before some of my professional contacts who I generally block from a lot of my posts were my “friends.” Now I have to go back and individually change all the privacy settings on those historic posts. I foresee yet another privacy outcry.

    My non-tech friends are already livid about the rapid fire news ticker, I’ll be curious to see how they like the new format.

    Vanessa

  • http://in8sworld.net/ iN8sWoRLd

    Facebook brought non-bloggers into blogging by putting an empty status update field in their face, and frankly the quality of content is just what you’d expect.  Most people on facebook wouldn’t be blogging otherwise, they have no desire to learn how to run their own sites and wouldn’t have bothered to do so.  Most of the time things worth reading on Facebook are actually not ON facebook but on a privately run blog or site and merely LINKED TO in facebook.    Bloggers (people who run their own sites) know the importance of personal brand and ownership of content (as you yourself state above) and most realize that these aspects are diluted or completely lost when a free third party offers to host the information.  I am not saying that Facebook doesn’t have great utility for sharing pics and coordinating families and groups, just that I don’t see bloggers who really do write more than a pithy sentence or two giving up control over their content to a for-profit company that may be as relevant as myspace is today in another 5 years.  Besides that – facebook is really creepy.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    I agree with you for those who actively manage a blog but for all those people on Blogger or wordpress.com who started off enthusiastically but then started posting less and less, I wonder if this was the nail in the coffin. 

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    Your average Facebook user hates any change. I agree that this one is good even though the ticker sucks. It will force people (people who care at least) to be a lot more deliberate about what they post and what they allow on their wall. I already found myself unliking some subjects just because I didn’t like the way they showed up on my wall. I too have more edits to make. 

  • http://www.jeremymeyers.com/ Jeremy Meyers

    I think blogs will die for those who treat them as a ‘way to keep people updated’ or whatever.  For those of us who have writing in our bones, blogs will continue to be relevant for us.  It need not be a zero-sum game, as many tend to obsess on (‘facebook-killer’, ‘blog-killer’.).  The need to share stories in multiple formats with lasting visibility will always be key.

  • http://in8sworld.net/ iN8sWoRLd

    For that subset of blogdom you certainly have a point.  Folks will use whatever they think is the easiest and best tool for the job, but I wonder now that Google+ has opened up to everyone if some of those folks will be migrating in that direction.  My own experience there has been a lot better than my two failed attempts to stomach facebook. 

  • http://juststart.tumblr.com/ Just Start

    For those of us in the tumblr crowd, this will be a perfect replacement really. Usually you are sharing a link or a photo or a news article. Sometimes you’re just republishing something interesting that someone else posted. 

  • http://twitter.com/LisaSullivan Lisa Sullivan

    I’ll admit, I neglect my personal blog more than I should. I can use the excuse “there’s not enough time in the day” (really, there isn’t) but if I’m being truthful, it’s a matter of making the time.  I enjoy writing and I still want a place where I can “release” my inner author.  So, yes, I will continue to keep my blog despite Facebook’s new very intelligent design.  This might actually motivate me to blog more. I hope! 

    Oh and one more item of note, I will not make ANY of my Facebook updates public and will not allow anyone to subscribe to them. I use FB for more personal reasons; not as a thought-leadership business tool. I plan to keep it that way…for now. It might change should my inner author decide to let itself out and I publish this crazy good book that is a best seller and that causes me to go on a book tour  and….. :)

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    I wondered about the new Facebook taking on Tumblr. The thing Tumblr has going for it is its community and (for me at least) I don’t think there’s a lot of overlap between ones Tumblr community and their Facebook community. 

  • http://juststart.tumblr.com/ Just Start

    That’s definitely true. I think there will always be people who share with outside groups other than their friends on FB. And yes, Tumblr does have a robust community already built too.

    I’m really excited to see how the new FB layout will be for brands and pages. I think for marketers there’s a whole new way to get their information spread.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    Isn’t it amazing that we all inherently understand the value and trade-off of social currency vs. privacy and that we all have our price? And thank you for that comment about your blogging habits. That’s really useful to know. I’m glad people aren’t throwing the baby out with the bathwater on this. I also wonder though if Facebook made their privacy settings even easier to manage if that would push people more towards their platform. Trust and control are the big issues here. 

  • http://twitter.com/LisaSullivan Lisa Sullivan

    What’s funny is I have had a love/hate relationship with Facebook for YEARS. No, seriously. I didn’t even start using the platform until 2008…and that’s only because many of my co-workers were already there (versus MySpace) and I wanted to connect with them. Throughout the last three years, there have been times where I’ve been extremely irritated by their lack of consideration for the privacy of their members even going so far as to make certain elements of account settings “default” rather than as an opt-in.  However, after 3 years of love and hate, even I have to admit their privacy settings are actually the best choice we got right now. I have issues with Google+, though they are a strong competitor (i.e. anyone can add you to Circles is my biggest pet peeve).

    So, yes trust and control are big issues…and you know what – I think they will forever remain big issues until someone develops a platform model that actually caters to their members rather than to their investors and advertisers.  That might be a long shot but you never know.  Heck, I’d happily “invest” a few dollars myself for a Facebook-like interface if it meant by doing so, I would be able to customize it how I wish it to be.  I might be in the minority here but oh well. I’m happy to be!

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    It saddens me that the world of social media has become little more than the outlet for advertisers. Social media used to be all about user control and avoiding rude, intrusive advertising. I’m not *that* concerned with privacy and I’m still with you in the minority that I wish someone would develop a subscription based network. But I don’t know how it would compete. Ning tried and it didn’t do very well. 

  • http://twitter.com/LisaSullivan Lisa Sullivan

    It saddens me too. I’m totally OK with advertising when done effectively, not like as you say “rude & intrusive” (great description, by the way!). I was never a fan of Ning. I get what the platform meant to do but in the end, it’s not as user-friendly as the Facebook’s of the world. I’d gladly take a subscription-based Facebook or something similar to it any day. Well, within in reason of course.

    Great dialog! Thanks and have a wonderful weekend!

  • http://www.davemadethat.com Dave Delaney

    Great thinking all around Tac. I actually just blogged about this this morning too. http://www.davemadethat.com/2011/09/23/the-death-of-the-personal-blog/

    I think it’s so important for people to consider where their content will go? How it will get used? Who will be sure it stays available after we die.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    Ha ha. Great minds… and all that.

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