I wondered aloud in class on Friday what lifecasting was, so I checked it out at home. Lifecasting (not to be confused with the molding/casting process) is basically a continuous videostream of one’s personal life broadcast live on the Internet. It is typically done through wearable recording devices.
My initial thought was, “Who in the world would be interested in this?” It sounds boring and a bit narcissistic. As it turns out, lifecasting has quite a history. Wikipedia offers a very thorough explanation and backstory here. Also, this is an interesting YouTube video that shows how some people (known as “lifecasters) are employing lifecasting.
What do you guys think? Is it weird or something that could actually be effective? How could different companies and organizations use it? I was thinking something along the lines of “A Day in the Life of the CEO.” Other ideas?
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2 comments:
I'm glad you looked it up, since I was wondering about that myself!
I agree, it seems like sort of an exercise in vanity to broadcast your entire life. Perhaps others are more interesting than I am, but I think most people would find it really boring to watch/hear my life 24/7.
Though, I also suppose it could be more interesting to see the daily life of more--for lack of a better word--interesting people. The "Day in the life of a CEO" concept seems really interesting. I think non-profits working overseas could show "A day in the life of an aid worker" or peace corps volunteer. Or see a day on tour with your favorite band or performer. Broadcasting your life 24/7/365 isn't something I'd be interested in at all, but using a more tempered version, by focusing on a single day of a single person of interest could be a good use of "life-casting."
I feel like 90 percent of the time that sounds like a terrible, awful, no-good, very bad idea. But there are just a handful of situations where I think I might be able to get into watching a lifecast. The example I came to right away was something like a college student traveling the world during his gap year. To get to follow along on that sort of adventure could be very cool. Of course, it could be very dull as well. It would all depend on how knowledgeable, humorous and (as Liz pointed out) interesting the person and his experiences were.
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