by Skellie
Steve Rubel discusses the way in which our online identities are fragmented in the web 2.0 world. You might be creating and sharing content on various blogs, forums, on Twitter, on Stumble Upon, Digg, Jaiku, the list could go on. It can be confusing to keep track of it, and more confusing for others who’re interested in following your work but find it difficult to track your creations across so many platforms.
I think Steve’s idea of using a tumblelog as a ‘lifestream‘ is a really interesting one. Sure, the coined title is a little cheesy, but being able to aggregate everything you create and like in one place has its attractions. For me, my tumblelog does that. I post links to all my web writing as well as articles, blog posts, pictures and quotes I like, and it’s proving really useful to have all my significant web activities in one place. Adding items takes just a few seconds, so it’s no drain on my time either.
I’ll cut to the chase: a tumblelog is something I think any creator of web content should maintain. Leo Babauta also has 13 additional reasons why you should consider starting one. My tool of choice is Tumblr, but I’m sure there are others. If you decide to take the plunge then I encourage you to link to your tumblelog in the comments section. I’d love to see it!
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8 Comments, Comment or Ping
AL
I use (and love) Ziki. The only drawback is it’s a French company so a lot of French people are there making me feel kind of alienated. But the functionality is superb and it lets me aggregate every kind of generated online content in one place that’s easy to use. Plus it sponsors your name for free on popular search engine pages.
Aug 30th, 2007
Guy
I do the same thing with my tumblr account - http://guy.tumblr.com/
Aug 30th, 2007
Miguel Vera
I completely agree. It’s funny because when I discovered Tumblr I signed in just because it was new but I didn’t know what to do with it. Then I thought that it could be a great tool to share news that I didn’t have time to comment in my blog, so I started posting titles and excerpts of news I found.
After a while I realized that I was making too much of an effort posting news there instead of posting in my own blog, so I had to rethink it’s use. I removed the link from my blog, also because it was kind of hidden and I didn’t know where to put it or how to make it interact with the blog.
A couple months ago it ocurred to me that it would be a good idea to revive it but removing the excerpts, and then started adding some friend blogs’ feeds, and also my own del.icio.us, twitter, flickr and blog feeds. I liked the result but I still didn’t know how to link it in my blog, until now. I just saw your Skellie’s Tumblelog link and it hit me, I have some tabs over the blog’s header so I just added it as tab. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before heh.
Anyway, sorry for the rambling, but for some reason I thought you could find it funny or interesting, who knows, maybe it’s just that I have plenty of time today
Aug 30th, 2007
skellie
I see what you mean. It’s easy to get into the habit of putting too much effort into it because it’s a lot of fun! But I think, as you said, they work best when you spend just a few seconds on each update, because you get something really useful for very little effort.
Aug 31st, 2007
Randy Aldrich
I started using Tumblog a few days ago and while i really like it, my use is dramatically different from yours.
I’ve found that sharing what you’re reading and what you’re interested in is fine and fun and useful, but most people overlook it. They’re more interested in the content you’re producing than the content your consuming.
To this end I’ve used google reader to create two feeds that I make public and share with anyone who’s interested in.
1) My Shared Items - I subscribe to my Tumblog, My Diggs, My Youtube favorites and my del.icio.us bookmarks. I post to Tumblog items which I do not already contain in a feed (and have no desire to subscribe to). This puts them in one of my feeds and allows me to share it through google reader.
2) My Content - This feed includes Both of my Blogs, My Flickr Stream, My Published Youtube Videos, My Personal Photo Albums (via Zippy Photos) and my Comic Strip. I also use Google Reader for this feed as well since it gives you the ability to share tags publicly i simply tag any of my content ‘my content’ and share that tag.
I find that most people are interested in the second feed but very very few are interested in the first.
Aug 31st, 2007
skellie
Hi Randy — as I’ve written in the article I’m actually using my tumblelog the same way. It’s good to see the process laid out clearly, though.
Aug 31st, 2007
Randy Aldrich
I think i understand… you utilize tumblog in the same way i utilize google shared items. Interesting. One thing i really like about googles shared items feed is that typically i sahre things i’m already reading. having a one-button way to do this while reading my feeds is very nice. Are there extensions or other such mechanisms to tumblog to do this or is it a case of logging into their site and creating a ‘post’ each time?
Sep 1st, 2007
skellie
Hey Randy, Tumblr performs the same function by allowing you to add a bookmark to your toolbar. The bookmark lets you add the page you’re currently browsing to your Tumblr, and it will change appropriately depending on what you add (if it’s a Flickr page it will extract the photo and add that, if it’s a YouTube page it will extract the video, and so on). It’s a really quick and easy process.
Sep 1st, 2007
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