I sat staring down the white screen of WordPress death tonight knowing that I was due a blog post but unable to come up with anything (I’m sure no blogger has EVER had that problem before, EVER).

So, in my writer’s-block-induced haze, I sent out the following tweet:

The lucky winner? Mark Krynsky (@krynsky) responded first:

Crap.

(Although I suppose I should be glad that Arik Hanson didn’t beat him to it, with his “Everything I learned about social media, I learned from Barry Manilow” suggestion.)

Mark was calling on me to refute a post I wrote several weeks ago asking what the big deal was about lifestreaming. That post generated a healthy discussion as readers tried to help me understand what value sites like Tumblr and Posterous added versus a traditional blog and other outlets like Facebook and Twitter. Mark, who authors the LifestreamBlog, left one of many great comments on the post.

I revisited the post and my initial stance. I wrote that original post from the standpoint of genuinely questioning and being curious about the value of lifestreaming, and not necessarily dissing or deriding the practice. A lot of the comments helped clarify my thinking. The most common reason people cited for lifestreaming was that it occupies the space “between Twitter and a blog” and provides an outlet for “off-topic” items that may be out of place on a subject-specific blog. Others use Posterous as a way to clip and save items from the Web, almost like a juiced-up Delicious account.

All are valid reasons, but so far I still haven’t found the time or interest to update (curate?) my own lifestream or really follow anyone else’s.

But, specific to Posterous, which seems to be the most popular lifestreaming tool right now, I will say that I do see the potential from an ease-of-use standpoint. The ability to send in blog posts via e-mail directly to Posterous is very compelling for someone who wants to blog or share information but doesn’t want to deal with a complicated (or even a simple) CMS. And Posterous makes it very easy to record audio clips and send them directly to the site. It’s a way to start creating content with extremely low barriers to entry.

Another interesting “group lifestreaming” experiment took place at Social Media Breakfast Houston. Bryan Person created a Posterous account and had attendees e-mail info and photos. I could see this type of format working for events and conferences as a place to have people collectively contribute content (holy alliteration). The concept is similar to Collecta, a site that pulls in Tweets, photos, and more for specific hashtags.

So, I’m not sure that asking a question can really be “wrong”, but I’ll certainly admit that my eyes have been opened to many more possibilities for lifestreaming. Heck, I may even get around to updating my Posterous account one of these days.

Thanks to Mark and everyone else who participated in my little Twitter/blog/crowdsourcing experiment. For now, writer’s block averted.