Lifecasting vs. Livecasting

I truly did learn something new at the Streaming Media conference yesterday at the NY Hilton; just how far people will go for a little attention. Everyone has heard at least something about the benefits of streaming live video. This is great for concerts, conferences…anything you’d prefer to view at the exact moment it is taking place. This is called live broadcasting or livecasting. But when streaming media is meant only to display every painstaking detail of someone’s life, it’s LIFEcasting. There are several sites that will help you facilitate your lifecast, though I don’t really want to share the names with you for fear of spreading the disease…ok, fine Stickcam, Mogulus, Kyle.tv and Zannel. Here, you can watch someone wake up in the morning, take a shower (seriously), eat breakfast, drive to work, sit in a cube all day, go to the gym, drive home, make dinner, watch Grey’s and go to bed. Thrilling. Now instead of someone filtering out the “interesting” parts of their day in order to fill a blog, we can actually WATCH someone’s life unfold, no effort required on their end. All they do is plug their camera into their computer and we can watch. Creep City. I want to write this off as yet another “nobody really cares” next big thing, but while watching the 30 minute-long panel at the Hilton, which was being streamed live, 45 people viewed it and 18 left comments. I guess someone cares, it’s just not me.