Paul Kedrosky: Structured Blogging Will Flop

PK slams structured blogging:

It’s the usual three reasons I trot out repeatedly to technologists with utopian visions who want to change the world on the back of altered user behavior:

People are lazy
People are lazy
People are lazy

Paul's right... people are lazy. In fact, I don't really want to continue this entry.

Those that are datablogging now are those who have the most value to gain from it. Fitness enthusiasts. Women trying to get pregnant. People trying to quit smoking. Etc.

But for most people it's just too much work to type data into the web browser. In the short term Paul may be correct... the hurdle of data entry will keep datablogging viable for those who have special data needs, as mentioned above.

In the long term is something called sousveillance. Sousveillance means self-surveillance... it's a French thing. Combine this with ubiquitous computing and you're getting to a point where people don't have to enter the data.

Our physical devices will become increasingly integrated into personal repositories. I used to call Reger.com a personal nostalgia repository for this very reason.

Think of all of the devices you have around you today. Cell phones with GPS. Camera phones with audio. Email clients. Heart rate monitors.

Now add the sensors of tomorrow: retinal video cameras, rectal temperature guages, automotive GPS trackers, implantable fingertip bar code scanners, rfid penile implants.

Throughout the day they all send data to your personal repository. At the end of the day you're presented with a list of things that were captured. A picture of you in Walmart buying beef jerky. The GPS track of your drive getting there. Your heart rate as the clerk's cleavage popped out. The debit from your bank account.

For each captured item you'll do one of four things:
1) Keep it and publish it for all to see
2) Keep it and publish it for only specific people to see
3) Keep it for only you to see
4) Delete it

The process will be unobtrusive... it's a UI challenge, not a technology one. It will capture your life in vibrant color and data. You'll spend your time creating qualitative analysis, not tediously uploading and categorizing data.

Yeah, we're lazy. That's what technology is for.

But why would we develop technology to do this? It goes back to the fire scenario:

Your house is on fire. You can only run in and grab one thing. What do you grab?

For most people it's a photo album or diary... something that captures their memories.

Technology is only beginning to get to a point where it actually helps us in our personal lives. More often than not these days technology is obtrusive and, on balance, not worth it. The value a person gets from personal data repository is something I call nostalgia triggering. The more data you have the better you're able to trigger nostalgic memories of your life later on. The triggers (what's in the personal repository) don't ever seek to replace the memory... just help you find it 50 years from now.

Whether good or bad experiences, we enjoy looking back. The triggers of today are already the most protected items in our homes. It's because of this value that we'll see devices eventually send data to central personal data stores.

Not convinced? Then how about we go back to Paul's three rules:
People are lazy
People are lazy
People are lazy

Exactly. People are tired of having pictures in the kitchen drawer, video on tapes under the tv, journal entries in a blog, gps data in some proprietary physical device. People want simplicity because they're lazy.

A personal repository is in order... structured blogging/datablogging is the first step to showing people how powerfully their data can trigger memories. This is a bit of a shift for the blogoshpere which grew up on the model of publishing... sharing to commune with others. The personal repository can do that... but it's also self-focused... much of the data in it will be kept private and away from the prying eyes of others.