Steve Rubel recently announced “So Long Blogging, Hello Lifestreaming,” indicating he was going to “direct all of my online publishing energies to one hub, The Steve Rubel Lifestream, plus several spokes, e.g. the social networks and platforms where I participate (e.g today that’s Twitter, Friendfeed and Facebook). You can read more why here.”

The influence and popularity of Twitter is undeniable, but I have always thought of Twitter as a “pointer site.” Most of the best tweets are not really 140 characters in length. They tend instead to point to lengthier articles and blog posts elsewhere.

I’ve recently been spending more time using FriendFeed than Twitter. I also have been using Posterous and think it is awesome, and I strongly recommend it as part of the standard social media tool kit. Posterous lets you post nearly any kind of information, including dozens of file types, directly (and nearly flawlessly) to your blog via email. I used it recently to post an ad hoc podcast on this blog, using the new iPhone Audio Memo app to record and then emailing to my blog.

I won’t go so far as to say it’s a gimmick for Steve to declare he’s done blogging, (who could blame a PR pro from doing something for its PR value), but I do think it’s an attention getter and I am not sure it makes sense. The best value I can offer is through thoughtful, reasoned analysis, and detailed posts on social media tools, applications and ethics. If all you want to do is share thousands of links a week, which is certainly one way to be informed and connected, you can go 100% lifestream, but otherwise, I strongly advocate the good old fashioned blog (who thought blogs would become passé?) as the place for where the best original content is still going to be published.

Tags: Steve Rubel, Lifestreaming, Life Streaming, Posterous, Death of Blogging