Lifecasting a Living: Why did I choose this Technological Career?

Lifecasting is a business model conducted in online social media contexts, wherein site owners produce content that is intended to be interesting and even financially compelling to an audience of like-minded individuals who participate as both viewers and collaborative content producers on the topic of focus. Largely a business model practiced by young Chinese techno-entrepreneurs, Lifecasting demonstrates how interesting topic knowledge combined with entrepreneurial spirt and marketing sensibilities related to the promotion of the online social media of the Internet can turn into promising careers for certain individuals. A similar phenomenon exists in the West, called "live streaming," but while many might be tempted to compare Lifecasting with Western-style streaming, there are key distinctions for Chinese Lifecasters, leveraging the online social medium as a nascent and productive business model. Lifecast audience members can send instant messages as well as payments and electronic "gifts" to their favorite Lifecasters, a factor which makes Lifecasting as a career quite compelling to some practitioners because of the revenue production potential. Any online social media user can be a 'caster, if they are willing to expend the time and effort to conceptualize, create, share, promote and exchange targeted personal information and experiences to interested groups of the Internet public. In this sense, modern Lifecasting represents a form of peer-to-peer (P2P) customized mass communication. As studied here, Lifecasting is a distinctly Chinese phenomenon. It is prevalent enough in China that the government formally tracks and reports on its progress. To that end, researchers interested in the concept as an aspect of emerging models of technological work should consider how likely the model is to prosper and grow in Western countries, specifically in view of its distinctly Eastern character in current use.