Aggregation for the Mainstream?

Mashasble has published an article today asking the question -

Will Aggregation Ever go Mainstream?

It's a valid question. In considering the issue, they reference recent posts from Louis Gray and Corvida, but the main point made and the potential death knell for these services is:

I think it isn’t that these sites aren’t cool and fun. I think that it’s just for folks who aren’t news junkies or folks who don’t make their hobbies and livings being up to date on the news have other things to be doing.

In an earlier post considering lifestreaming services in general, I wondered aloud (well, in blog-print) who has time for all this hyper-connectivity and in the end opted out of my FriendFeed account.  The reality is that the early adopters who have put the weight behind the initial splash of these services is a finite set. Eventually, growth will slow and the public at large will be looking for something more. My guess is that the common internet user doesn't have hundreds of RSS feeds and thousands of social media friends. For those folks these services simply aren't useful.

While the problem of Information Fragmentation is a real one, for most of the population it's manageable. I think of my wife as the perfect example. She has one email account, one social media account (facebook), reads the NYTimes online, mostly ignores her Twitter account, and has no idea what RSS means. Sure, she's got a few places to visit in order to collect her daily dose of digital information, but something like FriendFeed would be an unneeded layer of abstraction.

The articles referenced above cite the need for added functionality to allow a service like FriendFeed to be viable for the masses. You can break down these potential functional additions into two categories:

Added Functionality Generates Service Specific Data
If a service like FriendFeed generates additional data specific to the use of the service, then the service itself simply adds to the problem. That is, it ceases to be just an aggregation point and so as competing services evolve it becomes likely that either users will need to join multiple aggregation services or the aggregation services will need to inter-operate. Both of these scenarios seem pointless and I'm fairly certain there's an endless loop involved in inter-operable aggregation services.

Added Functionality Does Not Generate Service Specific Data
If these services do nothing but allow you to interact with your social media data from afar, then they're resigned to be the bastard step child of the sites for which they aggregate. For the average user, there's no reason to participate in FriendFeed when it's just as easy and more straightforward to participate in Facebook.

So the jury that is me remains undecided on the fate of these services. For an incredibly small segment of the population they present a solution to a daily problem, but to the internet user at large they're not very compelling. I'll report back when my wife activates a FriendFeed account.

Related Posts: LIfestreaming

Lifestreaming

In January of 1995, I took a month-long trip to Australia.

Being an early-twenty-something man, I was looking for adventure and during the "planning" stages of my trip, I decided not to plan anything. And so, after 25 hours of travel time I found myself in Melborune, at midnight, on the eve of the Australian Open. Needless to say, places to crash for the night were scarce. All the hostels were booked and the longer I roamed the city, led only by my Rough Guide, the more likely it became that a park bench would be my bed for the night. My feet aching, the pack on my back weighing heavier by the second, I found a room at last. It was priced considerably more than I had budgeted on a per-night basis, but I desperately needed a bed and a shower soon thereafter.

The next morning I packed up, turned in the key, and headed out into the (day-lit) wilds of Melbourne. Fully awake and refreshed, I reveled in the thought that nobody knew where I was or what I was doing. It was a sense of freedom unlike anything I had experienced - totally disconnected from everybody I knew.

I recently wrote about Information Fragmentation and how the sheer number of information sources and viable vehicles for information consumption can be simply overwhelming. And then I heard the term "Lifestreaming."

Mashable has posted a nice overview of 8 Lifestreaming Services. The thrust behind these services is a solution to the Information Fragmentation issue and an aggregation point for the volumes of information flowing out of our social media accounts and RSS subscriptions. In the interest of science, I signed up for one - FriendFeed. Creating the account was simple and pulling data from across my social accounts took nothing more than providing my username and password for each. I can then, just as easily, subscribe to my friend's FriendFeed to see all of their social media / RSS activity.

Good Lord.

I can't help but wonder - do we really need all this hyper-connectivity? With a service like this, communication can be reduced to a steam of FlickrDiggStumbleTwitters and it's quite possible for me to know what every one of my friends is doing nearly every moment of their online lives. When is it too much? When do the details of our daily existence become so available that we lose our sense of self. If everybody knows everything about you, what's left?

I suppose the argument is that these services are, clearly, optional. For me, I miss that morning in Australia and I've deleted my FriendFeed account.

Related Posts: Aggregation for the Mainstream