Not just a fad.
Our web presences may tell our life stories, but they do so in a haphazard,
unfocused way. Frankly, to my mind that's one of the positive aspects of "stories"
of this sort - not only are they continually being retold, but the retellings
reflect, and stem from, our changing perspectives. Perhaps we shouldn't call
them stories, but instead collections, or gatherings, of identity. Something
vague of that sort seems to describe the photos, the maps of where we took them,
or of where we've visited, or the routes we've taken, our comments and queries,
and whatever other "droppings" we may have left behind us.
It perhaps shouldn't surprise us that amid the flurry of Web 2.0 start-ups,
we're now beginning to see "tell your life story" sites that basically
give us templates that make it easy for us to generate a lifestory web site.
But did we really need this? At TechCrunch, Michael
Arrington reviews a number of these sites/tools. Singling out his favorite
of four being reviewed (Story of My Life)
he comments:
Of the four it’s my favorite because it defocuses on your life’s timeline and instead encourages you to just create a profile and then write stories about yourself, either in journal (blogging) format or around chapters such as “my college years.”
Which sort of begs the question - couldn't we, and didn't we, do this quite well
before "tools" that aided the doing were available? Those outdated Web
1.0 sites that simply let us put our story out there to the world seem to have
had something going for them.
Go to: The shoebox advantage.