It’s a pretty good bet that if you’re not making a Twitter or Facebook application, you’re probably making a lifestreaming application. Okay, so not everyone is into lifestreaming, but it is one of the hottest areas for development out there, and there are an overwhelming amount of services offering a way to aggregate all the little bits of your online life (which, for the purpose of this post, is the definition of lifestreaming that we’ll use). Richard MacManus wrote an excellent primer on lifestreaming in January, but we touched on just 5 such services. The purpose of this post, rather than to review, is to just list the various options out there.
Lifestreaming apps generally fall into two categories: those that help you keep track of and display your own lifestream and those that help you keep track of your friend’s lifestreams (or both). For the sake of clarity, we’ve focused mainly on the former for this list.
- Tumblr – Tumblr is a microblogging application that also allows the inclusion of activity streams from other services.
- Onaswarm – Onaswarm, which is in private beta, is a dedicated lifestreaming app that supports a wide variety of other services.
- Jaiku – The chief function of Jaiku, as a presence app similar to Twitter, is enhanced by letting users aggregate activity from outside services.
- Lifestrea.ms – Lifestrea.ms — in closed beta — is a dedicated activity stream aggregator that quotes our review in the company line by calling itself a “standards based nerve center.”
- Soup.io – Similar to Tumblr, Soup.io is a microblogging application. It also supports outside status updates for 11 services and any RSS feed.
- FriendFeed – Due to being founded by a bunch of ex-Googlers, FriendFeed might hold the crown for most talked about lifestreaming app. It supports nearly 30 web sites.
- MyBlogLog – MyBlogLog, which specializes in creating ad-hoc social networks around blogs, just got into lifestreaming with an update last night.
- Profilactic – Profilactic supports 135 sites. Yes, 135 sites. As well as the ability to add your own. Have fun.
- iStalkr – iStalkr is a hub for your social media activity and that of your friends and family, with a unique approach to lifestreaming that puts your life on a timeline.
- Correlate.us – Correlate.us creates a river of activity for a handful of supported sites, and graphs which sites you use the most, all with the design sensibilities of del.icio.us.
- ProfileFly – Focused on social networks, ProfileFly creates a replacement profile that mashes up status updates from your existing social profiles.
- Second Brain – Second Brain takes takes a slightly less automatic approach to life streaming by asking that you categorize and group your activity into collections. See our review.
- Explode.us – Explode.us is a social media search engine that also offers “a profile to consolidate your various online presences.”
- liveZuu – A lifestreaming application that supports 28 networks and offer a Facebook app.
- OneSwirl – A newer dedicated lifestream aggregator that celebrated its first public release today.
- Socialthing! – Currently in closed beta, Socialthing! is a promising lifestreaming service that offers a nifty-looking iPhone optimized version. They’re planning to release the service at SXSW.
- iminta – iminta keeps you up-to-date on what your friends are “in to” and lets you share your own activity stream.
- Plaxo Pulse – Most famous for helping to get Robert Scoble temporarily banned from Facebook, Plaxo’s Pulse product lets you aggregate activity from a wide variety of third party services.
- Identoo – A fairly standard social streaming site.
- Escaloop – Escaloop is a free-form lifestreaming app that lets you combine up to 20 RSS feeds into a single stream (yeah, there are other RSS mixers out there, but Escaloop is notable on this list for specifically targeting lifestreaming).
- Hictu – Hictu is a video microblogging app that supports importing activity streams from outside services.
- Life2Front – Life2Front’s LiFE-Line activity stream feature is a functional activity stream aggregator, if not the most attractive.
- 30Boxes – The online calendar app also has lifestreaming capabilities.
- Readr – Readr mashes 21 different sites into a single profile feed.
- Suprglu – Suprglu pulls content from the web services you use and then republishes them in blog format.
- Where is me? – A lifestreaming app that pulls from 11 services or RSS feeds.
- Slifeshare – Lifestreaming via a Mac OS X application (Windows promised soon).
- MovableType ActionStreams – For do-it-yourselfers, MovableType offers a lifestreaming plugin for their blog platform.
- SimpleLife – More for the DIY set, SimpleLife is a lifestreaming plugin for WordPress.
- WP Lifestream – Another lifestreaming plugin for WordPress.
- RSS Stream – You guessed it, a third lifestream plugin for WordPress.
- oneConnect – Yahoo!’s oneConnect mobile service includes activity stream aggregation features.
- Facebook (?) – Rumor has it that Facebook will be opening up the news feed to outside service updates.
- Socialstream – Nothing has come out of it yet, but this Google funded academic project at Carnegie Mellon University into lifestreaming has garnered a ton of press attention.
- Jeremy Keith’s Lifestreaming Script – Jeremy Keith’s lifestreaming script was one of the first and inspired some of the services on this list.
Are there any we missed? Which is your favorite? Let us know in the comments below.