mySyndication

I was reading this post on Release 1.0, which reviews a new web product called Stickam. Essentially Stickam is portable personal space on the web - an all in one multimedia and rss player that can aggregate your photos, videos, blog content, etc. onto a little player that you can "stick" anywhere and everywhere that you "own" online. This lets you keep your rich media consolidated, and allows you to easily attach it to all your social networking, blogging, and web profiles.

To quote Release, "In essence, this could means your eBay auction could turn into a little personal mashup: Part eBay, part Stickam. It may seem esoteric or just clever, but it's more than that. Stickam, I believe, heralds a trend in individuals' personal Web personas. With things like this, you no longer have to worry about bringing people to one site (say, your eBay auction, your Craigslist entry, or your MySpace page) to reach them. Instead, you put a small bite of your site on the communities you participate in."

I think this is an excellent idea for the same reason that I am a big believer in "found" entertainment content on the web. You shouldn't have to visit my flickr site to get my photos, and my vSocial page to get my videos, and my blog to read my blog. Rather, wherever you find me along the way, you should have access to my rich media content. Similarly, I think the network model that will succeed is an ad based syndication system in which you find content that appeals to you along your web journey. Whether this is contextual or more programmed is still up for debate, but I think syndication - whether syndicating yourself or syndicating produced entertainment, is the next step in the web experience. And in my mind, the fact that there is demand for syndication in the user generated market means that a smart producer will latch onto that format as well.