I was just reading a post over at the Lifestream Blog discussing the switch people are making towards lifestreaming. There are many tools available online that make it easy to post audio, video, and photos to the web to tell the story of your life. Many of these tools are getting easier to use; and they are beginning to share your content with sites. Darren Rowse also has thoughts on whether blogging is dead in light of lifestreaming.

For me, the attraction to lifestreaming is that it is much faster and easier to produce content on the fly than to sit at the computer to compose, edit, and post something on my blog. Despite the ease of production, I would not consider pulling the plug on my blog. For audio, you can often times call a number, make your recording, and hang up. For video, a cameraphone is often sufficient to churn out a video post. The appeal is that you do not have to edit a lifestream. You can simply post raw content.

Not everything lends itself to on-the-fly production. Sometimes you want to start a piece, set it aside, and come back to it later. You can’t do that with video or audio lifestreams. Once they are up, you can’t edit. The best you can do is delete or replace completely. Once you start editing your audio and video, you might as well have gone ahead and blogged.

Lately, I have not blogged so much. Nor have I tweeted as much as I used to tweet. Nor have I been as active online. The reason for all this is the volume of information coming at me is tremendous. This sort of thing does not give you time to connect two thoughts together; much less organize a blog post. During these times, I lifestream.

Lifestreaming is not for everybody. You still need to have some kind of message or information to share. When you spend your day doing boring, repetitive things, it is difficult to come up with ideas for lifestreaming. For lifestreaming to work, you kinda need to have a life. So, if you are the type who doesn’t get out much, lifestreaming is probably not for you.

If, on the other hand, you are quite busy getting things done and are out and about, lifestreaming may be what you need to do.

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President of Ultimate VA Support

I had an impromptu show on Blog Talk Radio last night with Jennifer Navarrete and Lans Hobart. We were just chatting about some of our favorite internet tools.

Besides the personal challenge in coming up with stuff to talk about for 30 days, what makes NaPodPoMo fun is that you get to hear other people who have something to contribute. It’s a great way to find podcasts that you didn’t know about.

Be sure to visit the site and sign up for the challenge. If you don’t want to podcast this year, then at least listen to some of the podcasts. Make some friends.

You can listen to my first post of the month on Utterli.

This morning, I did a show recounting what I witnessed in the aftermath of Hurricane Dolly while driving to work. Listen in.

When it comes to content, there has to be the one topic that defines what you offer. You have to make your name synonymous with a topic. When you hear Richard Simmons, you think Sweating to the Oldies. When you hear Fox News, you think Fair and Balanced. When you hear Robert Scoble, you think Technology Blogger. Some people are New Media gurus. Some are big names in the financial world. Everybody has a topic that defines them. Martha Stewart, for example, is a big name in home-related fashions and crafts. In short, everybody has a schtick that defines what they are all about. Marketers would call this a niche.

If you are having trouble finding an audience for your blog or other content, it’s probably because you don’t have a niche. You have to find the one topic at which you will the expert and the voice. In other words, you have to find your schtick. You have to be known for that one thing that makes you different from all the other schlubs out there. You need to stand out.

So, what’s your schtick?