The Platform of the Future

I've been pondering a blog re-invent for a while. The game has changed, and I'm not so sure standard blogs have much of a place anymore. Social media has neutralized thought leaders, and good writing has been replaced by soundbites. My favorite bloggers hardly do it anymore, and the blogs still trying hard have taken on an authoritative tone, which is just annoying.

I think the platform of the future is an integration of FB, Twitter, Flickr and video - all in one place, in one seamless environment. It would be a multi-dimensional platform with different levels of engagement. Some great examples:

• Mark Driscoll's FB account
• Justin Bieber's website
• Charles Trippy's world in Tampa, FL

Comments

[Dan]

I'm interested in seeing it, but I just can't bring myself to click on Justin Beiber's website.

[Ellis]

I can't believe the timing of your thoughts. I am wrestling with this subject matter. I am trying to figure out how to be best teacher/communicator I can. Thank you for wrestling ahead of me. Please keep your thoughts coming... I need them.

[Brian Alexander]

I still read blogs, but I agree they are dying.

[Chris Meirose]

with a good RSS Feed you could have all this delivered from multiple people and multiple sources with little effort. Maybe an improved RSS reader is the way to go?

[Ben Arment]

chris i believe strongly in a branded presence which gets stripped away entirely with an RSS feed.

[Heath Hiatt]

i agree completely. and btw, I clicked the beiber link. i feel all dirty inside...

[Kyle Reed]

Or how about SoChurch.com

[Ben Arment]

Lot of Bieber haters here. =) SoChurch is a platform for churches. I'm an individual.

[Richard]

You're talking about tumblr? That allows for scrapbooking the web, while keeping the flexibility to post your own "entries".

[wade]

I looked at Bieber's site and was shocked at how filled with admiration I was...of the "Bieber Machine"...like we all wouldn't want to have that much ifluence on that many folks. =) It's impressive. I would have never looked at it without the shove. Thanks Ben.
I agree with your post, but I read several blogs a day, not on an RSS, I go to each site, because I like to "feel" each site. It is one of the most relaxing parts of my day. I am sure you are right, culture/tech guru, about changes, but for now I am still a fan of quality blogs. I get to read and look at my own pace and nothing is shouting at me, like on Biebers or Charles' sites.
Maybe I'm already a dinosaur.

[Ben Arment]

the hardest part about the next generation of blogs is that it requires living online. i carry all the tools to broadcast my life, but i'm not sure i want to go there

[Kyle Reed]

My only issue with video blogging (really I want to start doing this) is that it feels a little egocentric. I see others do it and it is great. But I feel like when I am doing it people are just going to sit there and either stop half way through or think that I am full of myself.

I have had people tell me that I should video blog but I am a little unsure about it.

[Anne Jackson]

Or we can just be ourselves.

[Terrace Crawford]

agreed sir!

... and you've gotta give it to the Bieb. Dude has been topping twitter trends (daily!) for months!

-Terrace Crawford
www.terracecrawford.com
www.twitter.com/terracecrawford

[Scott Hobbs]

I think one of the key, for followers of Christ at least, is streamlining these tools to enable us to live the Gospel in the real-face-to-face world not just constantly type, post, follow, check phone, etc. in the virtual one.

It has been cumbersome and time consuming to to maintain multiple platforms. So I definitely agree a merging of platforms is the right direction and that blogging is giving way to quicker/one-stop access.

[Ben Arment]

if i weren't so fiercely loyal to typepad, i would've made the changes ages ago.

[Stephen Bateman]

There are a *ton* of RSS-haters, which I can understand. But branding will happen primarily in *what* you write, not how it looks.

It is currently not that easy to truly integrate FB/TWT/FLKR. It's easy to get everything on the same page. But making it truly interactive is still tough.

[B Hoang]

I like the general idea, but would want to see the Ben-approach to the merging of these formats. I.e., clean, readable, streamlined. The examples I've seen so far feel like messes of ads rather than useful portals of thought/creativity. However, I could see you pulling this merged platform idea off very well if done in true Ben style.

[John Carroll]

The future may be here already - http://www.feedmagnet.com

[Joseph Radosevich]

I don't think that you mean a lifestream like tumblr or posterous can be-though Driscoll's is pretty close to a lifestream. It's not a service that's needed. It's a new way of thinking about putting it all together: short-form and long-form text, pics, vid, resources, etc. All to tell a story.

In the Christian world, ragamuffinsoul and flowerdust are often close to it, but their sites are layed out like blogs. And people of the second chance are there to.

[Ben]

Great find John

[scott aughtmon]

I agree with you on a lot of this, but maybe one of the benefits of less people blogging is there's less "static" and competition for attention. Quality blogs that give consistent, valuable content (like yours) will be able to grow and advance even more than before.

[Ben Arment]

I think one of the causes of blogging's demise is the static of twitter. I'm not dissing it as a tool. But the negatives outweigh the good. Loved Seth Godin's thoughts about it in Linchpin...

[Ryan]

have been looking at tumblr for a couple of weeks now, thinking about a switch. but it doesn't completely replace or combine, but it does integrate with facebook and twitter fairly well.

[anne jackson]

@joseph -- it's because i'm a blogger. :) that's my primary MO. appreciate the shout out. thank you :)

[Ben Arment]

yeah, i think it's a whole new interface

[Mike O]

I'd like to see a blog that is a forum. Each blog post and the comments become a thread on a forum. And, when someone replies to a forum post, that thread comes up on the blog, just below the top (today's) post.

I call it a blorum.

Say you have a post about Easter services at a startup church. Naturally, you will get a lot of posts this time of year. Then it will "sleep", but this time next year, it will come up again.

I'd also like to see Google Wave work with the blorum. If i saw an interesting thread, I could make an appointment with the poster, and we (and maybe a few others?) could interact with wave.

[Allan W.]

Great questions, Ben. I do see blogs dying, in its "traditional" form. I'm with you on the value of a strongly branded territory, a space that you still control.

What I see happening is the "brand chunks" (elements, if you will) kind of exploding and scattering into all these various channels. Perhaps the content starts at the blog, but is reposted/linked and the conversation happens in all these other places (i.e. Facebook, youtube, etc.).

Right now I'm really liking hosted comment services like Disqus and IntenseDebate for that part. They adapt more rapidly than any blog platform can, and they are good at capturing "social media reactions" (kind of like meta-comments, I guess - RTs and the like), and displaying that on the blog.

A pleasant side effect is that I don't have to manage users & comments as much. Also, it lets me manage multiple blogs more easily.

The medium itself is changing rapidly - not all for the better. Quality long-form reading online (say, a magazine article length - sad) is rapidly dying.

[Allan W.]

I hate to say this, but I disagree with those commenters who say, "write excellent content [alone], and they will come, regardless of the 'other stuff'".

"The medium is the message" - McLuhan's statement seems more true than ever here. If the writing isn't connected to the rapidly changing social media landscape, then it just won't get read. At least, not by as many people. That landscape is moving rapidly to twitter-length text bites and image-culture video clips: a medium not conducive to longer-form, thoughtful blog posts.

I read Ben's blog because it is thought-provoking, honest, and excellent. I mostly read via RSS (why the haters?). But, I'm old-school that way.

Books still have the power to change lives. Has a blog post ever really changed the way you look at something?

[wvpv]

I agree with Allan.

RSS is where it's at. I hardly read anything outside of Google Reader.

Blog redesigns come and go.

If it's not short & sweet, crazy funny or deeply personal and profound, I move on.

Not sure if that's good or bad.

The helpful things for me right now are tools to find good content and segregating content into meaningful groups.

[Ben Arment]

i'm one of those people who think design is as essential as content.

i once attended an outdoor wedding where the father of the bride placed port-o-potties all around the ceremony grounds for convenience. it sure was convenient...