To store or not to store ... I think that the buzz about Google's new Desktop Search tool (as well as the great reviews afforded Copernic's free download that does the same thing) will have some bearing on this issue.

Here's a bit of back and forth between Marc and one of his readers that highlights Marc's sense of wher e this issue is going, and will end up:


Response to Steve Mallet

I wrote a post about Ted Leung and his microcontent personality disorder needs.

Steve Mallet left this comment about the post:

His life would a lot easier if he published everything from his weblog. (http://datalibre.com) , owned all that data himselft and let others aggregate it. Imagine how complicated life will be for him when he wants to move his images, bookmarks, etc to a different service or service(s). [Fooworks]
...and here's my response to Steve's comment:

Dude - as if! Let me give you the Trotts' and Evan Williams' phone numbers and why don't you ask them why they don't store all forms of micro-content and aggregate entire lifestyles in their products today?

The fact is Ted (and everyone else) lives in a world of multiple accounts, multiple generations of stuff, multiple locations, services and accounts we own and use. That's just life. Your digital life.

So YES we want the blogging tools to store and manage all this stuff - but by the time they do that - they'll be called digitial lifestyle aggregators.

:-)

Some will start from TypePad and blogging.
Others will come at it from Flickr and photo sharing.

Still others will start like 1UP.com and a game portal.

Or Glowria.fr and a DVD rental biz.


But five years from now - they'll be the ones making all the cash with white label deals - not stand alone blogging tools.