'Lifestreaming' Challenges Traditional Social Networking

A new kind of open social networking is gaining a foothold with online leaders. “Lifestreaming” services like FriendFeed—launched in February by ex-Google employees—let users bring online social activities from various sources together in one feed. Leader FriendFeed is logging 150,000 visitors a month, but the big players won’t cede ground without a fight, one VC told the Financial Times.

“Facebook, MySpace and Google are all fighting to be the aggregator of your social data. Being that social data backbone gives the ability to monetize,” he said. “I think this is going to be a big battle and in many ways it’s the battle for the future of the web.” Other lifestreaming services are Plaxo, Iminta, Socialthing, Lifestream.fm and Zude. (More social networking stories.)