WalesCymru.com

I hear you say, “What is he talking about today”; well before you click away judge for yourself.

Lifestreaming is not new. It’s what we do every day and simply involves sharing our experiences of the places we’ve been, films we’ve seen, books we’ve read, games we’ve played, etc. with friends, family, or anyone who cares to listen.

With today’s digital technology we have have the ability to stream our life experiences to this same group as a ‘news feed’ or ‘activity feed’, or as some now call it a ‘life stream’.

If you use Facebook, or any of the social media sites, you’ll be familiar with this concept, but for those two or three readers who don’t, it looks something like this:

The main features of the ‘life’ News Feed are:

1. You select the people you want to follow
2. Actions by these people are published as ‘easy to scan’ headlines to your news feed
3. You spot something that interests you and click through to the actual item, and where you can interact in whatever way you think appropriate

Actions published to News Feeds include: status updates (I’m doing ‘this’ right now), connections established (with new friends, groups you’ve joined, relationships you’ve started / finished, etc.), photos / videos added, comments posted, etc. The feed can also include ‘adverts’, usually selected to be context, location or interest specific, and helps to fund the service.

The questions I’m dealing with today are: Do we really want a digital lifestream? Are we equipped to deal with it? Then, as the follow-up, If yes, who should control this feed?

Is a ‘Lifestream’ a web2.0 step too far, or an essential social media service?

Like most new technologies potential users fall into three camps: those who love it and are rapid adopters (about 5%); those who hate it and will never use it (also about 5%, but probably higher in this case); and those who have little interest, can’t be bothered, or will simply use the facility without giving it a second thought (the majority).

In considering the first question, do we want it, the answer appears that we do, well all users of Social Network sites do and that’s close on 500 million people today. The fact that sites exist simply to provide these feeds (Twitter, with a reported 1.6 million users, is the obvious example), confirms just how highly some of us value this service. For site’s like Facebook, this is arguably the single most important feature or at least it’s the one we most often access, which is why it’s our ‘home page’.

Which then raises the next questions, are we equipped to deal with it and who should control what we see?

In the above illustration, it’s Facebook who selects the actions published on ‘my’ News Feed; although this process ‘learns’ what I like by the ratings I give individual items (did you know you can do this?). However, in reality I have little if any control of which items actually appear in this source. The second disadvantage is that these sites typically only feed activities that take place on the site, which is why services that provide ‘lifestreaming’ feeds drawn from multiple sources have now been established and are growing in popularity. These sites include: Jaiku, iStalkr, and Tumblr - to name just three; although a much longer list can be accessed on LifestreamBlog.com if you’re interested.

Are we ready?

As we each have several hundred friends, family members, and colleagues who will typically publish a few dozen items every day, we should expect to see upwards of 1000 items in a 24 hour life feed, and 10x this number if you have active friends, or follow hundred’s of people’s feeds.

For most people, it seems these numbers are simply too high and we are not yet ready to accept full responsibility for this constant stream of digital noise, and are we happy that someone else is managing this on our behalf.

While the majority are always likely to abdicate responsibility to a trusted group, those who have an interest and knowledge will want to manage these streams themselves. This is not, however, an acceptable long term solution.

Once responsibility to manage a life feed is grated to a third party, the information processed by them is both comprehensive and extensive and can easily be used (abused) for commercial gain.

Ask yourself why some sites are opposing open solutions that takes away their control of this news feed, and you see the game that is now being played out for control of your life stream.

So where I am going with this (he asks rhetorically)?

I suppose it’s this - Should WalesCymru.com be part of this trusted group, or a bystander to the main game?

Only time, and our users, will tell which it is to be.

Recently WalesCymru took to the road, literally. I drove the length of Wales, going up and then down some amazing and hardly used roads, to participate in VisitWales’ 2008 Roadshows. Now these events are over, and with the invoice about to arrive, I’m asking myself Why?

The theme this year was “Sustainability”, so maybe I should have followed the lead advocated by the keynote speakers and simply stayed at home, watching the presentations on download rather than adding a few extra tons of CO2 to my carbon footprint. This was certainly the cheaper option and in today’s credit squeezed economy may have been the most sensible. But sensibility has never been my strong point and in doing so I would have missed sampling some tasty locally sourced food and the chance to ‘network’ with the trade, not to mention the hospitality I enjoyed at the (coffee) bars and the chance to drive down those great roads.

Let’s recap on what I actually learnt and especially if this was money well spent. Which I suppose comes do to one simple question, namely: Why attend?

I convinced myself that if 1000 people attended the four events this would be 1000 new people who would see WalesCymru in operation. This was a mistake. Firstly 1000 people did not attend, and even if they had the reality is you only speak with a fraction of these at an event. While my goal to was meet 1000, in reality this turned out to be less than 100 and equated to a cost of around £15 per person.

I believed this event would give me some valuable feedback on the site. Again I was wrong. Feedback implies familiarity, and as only one person I spoke to had used the site, this objective was some way off target. Given that I’d produced 1000 ‘feedback’ forms which I’d hoped to distribute, only to find the policy this year was ‘no handouts’ as we’re being green, I really missed the mark on this one. Strike two.

But there’s always networking … Well, when you’re manning your stand during the 2 hours or so allocated to ‘food and exhibition’ breaks do you really get much networking in? I’m not sure about you, but I find splitting myself in two rather difficult, so missed most of the networking opportunities that were going. That said I did chat with some interesting people and also picked up some scary facts (commercial fishing ends in 2048) and a few new ides, which were:

1. Wales needs an integrated public transport system ASAP. This will not be economically viable for some years to come, if ever
2. Buses are greener than trains. Wales should invest in fleets of electric / hybrid buses, recharged by 21st Century Windmills
3. Sustainability is a fashionable policy with a high price tag. Ask your Councilor or AM about ’sustainability’ schemes and they’ll probably talk about land fill and recycling, but say nothing on dedicated city bike routes, zero emission buildings, or supporting a local farmers’ market. Clearly we have to do the thinking for them!
4. Community email services provide great cross promotion opportunities. OK this is more like it - back to emarketing and the Internet; but does it work? Perhaps the answer to this question is that Aberconwy Web Solutions have been named as one of the three finalist winners in this year’s Excellence in e-commerce category in the Western Mail Business Awards and the Info4-u e-CRM system has already delivered around £2m in business to North Wales operators.

So, back to the original question. Was the 2008 Tourism Roadshow worth it? On balance I have to say no. If I was judge the event by the return on investment, I’m certainly in the negative, and that’s not even including my extra Co2 contribution. But then what value do you put on exploring the scenic areas of rural Wales or in meeting new and interesting people?