DISQUS

Jeremiah Owyang · 5 months ago

Well spoke, great graphics too

Keith · 5 months ago

I agree that blogging is more important than ever. Blogging at its best is long form communication that cannot be replicated via Twitter or Friendfeed comments.

The difference for me personally is one of thoughtfulness. Good writing requires a copious amount of thinking and through editing it is crafted to communicate precisely and thoroughly. Nothing can replace that process.

Twitter and Friendfeed are wonderful but social media cannot be a substitute for blogging. Blogs are still the engine of thoughtful discourse and therefore are more important than ever.

Tsudohnimh
KnowtheNetwork.com
@tsudo on Twitter

Meral Akin-Hecke · 5 months ago

Somebody has to write all the articles that are linked and shared on twitter, friendfeed, digg etc but aggregating everything on one page seems to me as a good option though leaving the blog as the foundation.

Shawn Hickman · 5 months ago

I really like what Steve Rubel is doing. Mixing content that he finds interesting with longer "blog" posts seems like a natural progression. I do agree that you need to have a central hub for people to start at. Simply having a Twitter account won't cut it. You need to be everywhere.

andrewmeyer · 5 months ago

Good post. I think that you should tie in all the components you can to try and promote your blog. You can use Twitter, Facebook, etc to make sure that you get exposure to different audiences. Otherwise you may only be hitting those that are linked to you via RSS. There may be some good value from these social networks that you would miss otherwise. Keep those 140 character updates without blog links up too though. It will keep your followers wondering what you may be up to next.

Christine Major · 5 months ago

Great post Louis. As a person that is just starting to blog, Its great to hear that all my efforts aren't going to be wasted. I have always believed that the blog, like a corporate website, is like homebase. It's where all those thoughts, ideas and opinions, that I cannot express through purely microblogging, reside.

Thanks!
Christine
@cmajor

Marko Saric · 5 months ago

Steve Rubel is still blogging actually. I don't see any difference really. You can have short blog posts, you can have long blog posts, you can add videos and so on... you can do all that on a Wordpress blog... he just chooses to call it lifestream... and he chooses to give away a lot of control by moving to an external server which doesn't allow as much customization / control as Wordpress does.

SteffenKonrath · 5 months ago

Louis, I would agree that blogs are integral part of an overall social media strategy. It has its place, no doubt. I also like your first draft of how that architecture might look like although I would design it differently: blogs are a central point for "permanent" information, indepth articles and so on. While I would use Twitter to connect, to demonstrate expertise in the area of interest. Podcasts and YouTube might enrich with additional media perspectives of the same topic you would like to become the agenda setter. - Kindly, Steffen Konrath

Brandon Mendelson · 5 months ago

Good call Louis. I enjoy Steve's blog, but have been questioning how useful it is with the high noise ratio it now has. I know he refers to it as a journal, but I come to a blog to see a synthesis of thoughts in one post or others, the random posts to content seems disjointed.

I'm still following along, but blogs remain the thing I feel.

kachwanya · 5 months ago

Blogs are the central point for arranging information, or the foundation where the information shared in twitters, facebook and any other so called lifestreams. The basic fact is the streamed information has to be written somewhere and 140 or so characters are not informative enough. Whatever happens next blogging will remain the king.

@kachwanya
www.kachwanya.com

Briana Tomkinson · 5 months ago

A welcome dose of common sense. Companies should think strategically about their message, their audience and their ability to staff for content creation & reply, then choose the tool that is the best fit with their goals & constraints. I think it's natural that blogging should drop off, particularly for those who were using it more for sharing links or friends/family-focused communication. Other tools are better optimized for those kinds of goals. For regularly publishing long-form content, blogging remains an essential tool.

hardaway · 5 months ago

Or until you come to terms with it and realize that no matter how much you write, you will NEVER be a trending topic on Twitter, and that you are writing for self expression and joy

mager · 5 months ago

True indeed.

StephenPickering · 5 months ago

Totally agree. More flexible, cheap or even free, more expressive of who you are. Even for an individual its the hub of who you are. I really feel because of these features it will be the internet dial tone of the future even for the individual and family. For that reason I think Wordpress is the biggest threat to Facebook actually. Did you catch this piece a couple months ago by Andrew Keen: http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/the_great_seducti... He quotes Matt Mullenweg abouut the topic.

partywedo · 5 months ago

I love the chart titled "The Blog Is Still the Foundation". It is a great illustration of what I believe is an ideal business communication strategy.
Where does the corporate website reside in this strategy? Is that the box that you describe as "Links to Industry"?
Do we provide links to the corporate homepage in all of the boxes that you illustrate?
Thanks for standing up for the blog centered strategy.

Bill French · 5 months ago

Louis - I agree 100% and I will add that sustainable thought leadership for businesses requires comprehensive articulations of domain expertise. A corporate blogsite is the most effective instrument available [today] to achieve this objective.

While I can't rule out the benefits of a "corporate lifestream", it cannot replace the idea of authoritative marketing content and domain expertise.

F. Andy Seidl · 5 months ago

Great post, Louis; I agree, in general, with what you've said.

While it is important to spread your "brand DNA" throughout the web--via Twitter, Facebook, RSS syndication, e-mail, comments, etc.--it is critical that your brand have a center of gravity where someone can turn when they specifically decide they are interested in your brand.

Depending on the nature and scope of the brand, a simple blog may be exactly the right center of gravity. But often a better choice is a hybrid (I use the term "blogsite") that combines elements of a traditional corporate website with multiple blog channels, and other elements such as a social media newsroom, syndicated content (such as your streams), and vertical search functionality that spans your online content wherever it is.

But the key point--which is the point I think you are making--is that you need a web destination that is *your* center of gravity. Fracturing your identity across a variety of streams (only) is a weak strategy.

Slave Girl · 5 months ago

Loved this article- "The addition of more options shouldn't mean the elimination of the original." Very well put.

Scott Gould · 5 months ago

Hey Louis

I agree that we need a holistic strategy. Of course there are many of us (including most businesses) who need a centralised 'Base Camp' (thanks, Chris Brogan).

My struggle and gripe is with the etherial nature of most social media but particularly micromedia. Certainly in the 2010 web we will have even shorter, more frequent, more mobile social media interactions - yet - I can't help feeling that the production of more and more content is lessening the weight of each interaction. Therefore, for me, a blog is a place where I can craft my thoughts and experiences into non-etherial content that will stand and last.

Liang · 5 months ago

If we look back, Blog and the lifestreaming activities is somewhat like the books and magazines or newspapers..... everyone reads newspapers but books still exist and the its importance sustains.

elliottng · 5 months ago

Totally agree with this Louis. Well said.

Twitter/Friendfeed are wonderful outposts. But terrible home bases.

A few years ago, Avinash Kaushik (analytics blogger/evangelist) shared with me "the 1 metric to rule them all" - RSS subscribers. The deep insight here is that quantity of followers/readers/etc is important only so far as it is in service of driving the most involved and most passionate people in your brand's community. Those highly involved people need to be feed by a deeper interaction than what you can get from just cruising a FriendFeed feed or following on Twitter. FF and Twitter are obviously complementary.

Dave Lucas · 5 months ago

I was anti-Lifestreaming when I first heard about it. http://dave-lucas.blogspot.com/2009/06/blogging...

Then I read this: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Foremski/?p=579
Then I remembered "Google Wave."
Lifestreaming may indeed be the "wave" of the future!

Dvir Reznik · 5 months ago

I totally agree with your view Louis and your 'Blog is still the Foundation' graphic is superb!

Your blog is your brand, and no matter what new service will be introduced, there must be some base level to build upon. Twitter cannot stand on its own, and even posterous, while easy to use (post), doesn't provide the rich functionality that blogs provide. For me, you, Jeremiah and others it's the blog, because (new) social services will come and go, but your website (blog) will remain, linking by RSS to your online identities, as they develop.