Will “Blog It” be the killer app for content syndication?
Not that long ago, you were quite the cutting-edge character if you had a blog. Nowadays, large portions of the populous have taken it to the next level - fulfilling their desire to let you know where they are, what they think, and what they’re doing right now. (guilty as charged).
To keep the content and lifestream flowing, even semi-serious bloggers often post in multiple locations: company site, personal blog, alternate personal blog, local blog, business group blog, etc. Add in Twitter accounts, Pownce accounts, and the ubiquitous Facebook page, and you are looking at managing online content across as many as 10 platforms. It’s like being your own Associated Press.
This is partially the case because not every thought is appropriate for every venue. Some writers use particular forums to comment on particular issues, and other forums for other issues. Like a modern-day Zelig, tone and approach can vary significantly to meet the needs and norms of the audience (especially between micro formats like Twitter, and full-text blog posts like this one).
But, today’s announcement by SixApart of Blog It may help solve this content distribution entanglement. A free application for Facebook (natch) Blog It allows the content freak to link blogs and micro content accounts to Blog It, using Blog It to post across the entire network - or selected subsets. My early tests indicate that while functionality is very basic at present, the premise is quite excellent. It takes the power of lifestream aggregators like friendfeed and adds near universal blog support, and locates it within Facebook, the closest thing to an epicenter we have today.
Essentially, Blog It aims to be the content syndication engine for the world’s citizen journalists. At the end of the day, content distribution trumps everything (including content quality), and Blog It is enabling true “think once, post everywhere” communication. This should result in substantially more cross-posting and potentially an explosion of new blogs (why not create yourself 3, 4, 5 different blogs if you can easily cross-post).
Bravo to SixApart for diagnosing a tactical weakness in the blogosphere and developing a seemingly elegant solution. Blog It could become the default content creation/distribution tool within weeks, especially among frequent posters.
