Convergence of Blogging Sites (Score 5, Interesting)

Seems to me that there are a few different sites that are just waiting to be converged. While some of us are aspiring writers, much fewer of us have the writing skill to keep an anonymous audience enthralled. A different subset perhaps doesn't use the written word eloquently at all, and prefers to share his/her life through pictures.

What all these sites are nibbling around the edges of, is that people want to communicate more effectively. In the last 20 years we've seen two major advancements in communication: the web-based message board (like slashdot), and instant messenger. More recently some social networking sites have come close, but none have succeeded in that perfect combination of being able to easily share your thoughts, words, and photos with everyone you care about (and everyone they care about).

The only site I've seen that even comes close is called Multiply, and even that needs some work before it's truly powerful (I'd like to see more integration with existing communication tools, for instance).

The next few years are going to bring some dramatic change to the way we communicate -- that's for sure. Wonder which direction we'll be taken; let's just hope it's not an "embrace and extend" strategy by Microsoft!