and here's the play at the plate...

I've got very little time to spare these days and for the next little while, as we are fast approaching the date of my organization's major event on Sunday, August 3, at the same time as we are getting ready to launch our new website (about to launch in beta in about ten days - want to beta test it with us?).

Things are only going to get more hectic over the next few weeks, which has made me think more about my online habits, and specifically, what happens to those habits when I am truly pressed for time.

What happens? I spend much more time sending out short bursts of information, via microblogging like twitter, or audio posts on Utterz.

These are technologies that allow me to broadcast on the fly, and let me just keep folks up to date on what's going on. Useful, very useful, for when times are so busy all I can do is act, not reflect.

It seems to me that blogging is more for reflection, assimilation and synthesis of information, whereas the tools I mentioned just now -- often referred to as lifestreaming tools -- are for real-time updates.

If my life were a baseball game, Twitter and Utterz would be the play-by-play announcer, and my blog is where I write the column for the next day's newspaper.

And Friendfeed? Friendfeed is my wire service.

If you want to watch (and participate in) something really fun and interesting while I am over here going 100 miles an hour, check out the NTEN Be The Media Project (to be renamed soon, we promise). I am participating and contributing to it as I can, but there are bound to be many interesting contributions and discussions over the course of the project (curated by none other than Beth Kanter), so mark it and stay tuned.

In the meantime, I'll be in the play-by-play booth.