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It starts so innocently. A blog post here, a social network profile there, a photo upload here, a microblogging update there... The next thing you know, you've got online profiles up the wazoo and friends who seem to be blowing you out of the water with their prodigious writing, photosnapping and updating habits.
Just as your head is about to start spinning around like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, you wonder if there's any way to make it stop. When will you be able to turn to your prolific network and utter, "Ego te absolvo"?
In 2006, we created 161 billion gigabytes of information and in 2007, we created 281 billion gigabytes of information. Which means that currently, digital information is being created at a faster pace than that of digital storage. So how is it being curated?
Some tools to help you cope
The good news is that there are a number of people who have realized that this is a growing problem, and they're here to help. They're creating aggregators. This isn't a new term, but it's definitely a hot space right now. Help people make sense of their own and their friends' online effluvia, and you're in good standing.
Here are a few that are emerging that may be worth keeping your eye on.
Spokeo is a social network aggregator that covers about 38 sites. It's got a clean design and includes some entertainment media networks such such as Blockbuster and Pandora.
While Lijit can function as an aggregator of your friends' content, I like that it allows you to post a widget on your blog and share your own activity with your readership. This includes the ability to search for content. Each week, Lijit will share your site's search stats with you in an email.
Riffs is the social recommendation aggregator. It's a single place to recommend all types of media to your friends - books, CDs, mp3s, DVDs, etc. You can tag items for social searching, let Riffs search your recent iTunes playlist and make purchase recommendations, chat about favorites with other like-minded users. An interesting way to aggregate your multimedia preferences.
FriendFeed has been all the rage lately. I've been a beta tester for a while, but only noticed it picking up some steam in the last month or so. FriendFeed is basically another social network where you connect with your friends from various social networks and follow their daily activity in an RSS feed. It tracks only a limited of number of services right now - 28 - but it's got Netflix and Amazon Wishlists in there as some quirky offerings. I'm definitely getting information overload from all of my friends' updates in FriendFeed.
SocialThing made a big debut at the South by Southwest Interactive conference last week and is using limited invitations and "private beta" to build buzz (there's an entirely different post brewing on that subject). It's got a clean design and some nice user settings, like choosing to view lifestreams by user or by time, but it's limited in the number of services it covers.
The aggregator to end all aggregators
The single most impressive social network / lifestream aggregator out there is, hands down, Profilactic. Supporting a whopping 155 sites & services, Profilactic allows you to slow the firehose of information coming at you by allowing you to selectively exclude updates within each of your friends' feeds. It's got a clippings feature that allows you collect information that you've created and that others have created about you - like a digital scrapbook. And finally, you can create a badge and post your information on your site.
When you add that they've just signed a six-figure deal with a major social network, it becomes even more impressive.
I'm glad to see that so many people are trying to solve this problem of information overload. Now let's just hope that we dont' need aggregators for the aggregators...
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Comments
Scott,
Very informative post! As a marketing/communications consultant and a presenter on old media vs. new media, I am always searching for new tools. In this case, I have already added my blog and my blogroll to Lijit. Although I get lots of invites for beta testing, none of those you mention above have invited me to participate. Would love to be among the lucky few experiencing the beta versions of the tools above and share what I learn with others.
Posted by: Lewis Green | 03.19.08
Great round-up, Scott. Thanks!
I laughed out loud at "profilactic." Simply a great name for that service! Kudos to the 3 founders for that one. : )
Posted by: Ann Handley | 03.19.08
Wow, what a nice little collection of bright and shiny objects.
Posted by: Peter Kim | 03.19.08
Scott - Welcome to Daily Fix and thanks for the terrific resources. Now to find time to aggregate to save time :-)
Posted by: Toby | 03.19.08
Scott
Great post! Smorty71 got me to check out profilactic - still not sure about the name, but I agree - great service.
I'm still waiting for the one killer aggregation app that will actually solve the problem vs. adding yet another site to go to...
Looking forward to more of your articles.
Posted by: Krista Neher | 03.19.08
I had to laugh at the name "Profilactic" too - when uttered in conversation, you instantly become aware of the dangers of homonyms. But just think of the useful conference schwag these guys could hand out. They'll be the most popular booth by far! ;-)
Posted by: Scott Monty | 03.19.08
I need an aggregator to keep my aggregators straight! Thanks, Scott. I'll give Profilactic a shot, when I get my invite :-)
Posted by: Melanie Notkin | 03.19.08
Profilactic is wide open to the public, Melanie.
Posted by: Scott Monty | 03.19.08
Scott, thanks for the incredibly kind words about Profilactic. We really appreciate it.
Posted by: smorty71 | 03.20.08
This is such a great post. I just did a webinar the other day about the issue of organizing all of our social media profiles in a way that doesn't make it a full time job just keeping up. I have just started using Profilactic, myself and I think I'll recommend this article to my students for choosing their "coping tools."
Thanks Again,
Sheree
Posted by: Sheree Motiska | 03.21.08
I've been working hard to manage my online identity as well as encouraging my students to develop their 'personal brand' so I created:
http://squidoo.com/onlineidentity
to teach others how I do it.
Posted by: Thomas Ho | 03.22.08
Great list! We particularly like Spokeo but we're not familiar with the others as much as they are definitely going to be checked out now. These aggregators sure make social life online a bit easier!
Posted by: Brick Marketing | 03.24.08
Dr. Ho -- You are so right that students need to have a great presence on both Yahoo and Google in order to get the kind of jobs they work.
Any of us are out networking are selling our names in addition to our products. Our name is our brand so lets treat it right.
I've found this great new service that allows you to create your personal brand on line and helps you obtain a page one relevance and control you personal content by writing your own bio. To see how it works - Google Kathy Greider. Also offers virtual business cards. A green business that helps any one (students, professionals, sales persons, entrepreneur, musicians, authors, artists, technical folks), anyone who wants to be found on the web can now control their personal branding.
Just today, our founder, spoke to a class at UGA providing information regarding how important it is that students need to make a first great e-impression. Currently more than 60% of human resources people Google applicants for jobs before they call to interview.
Google Me -- Kathy Greider see how I control my site for $10 a month
If you are interesting in contacting me please use the greiderbiz@yahoo.com address.
Posted by: kathy | 03.26.08
Dr. Ho -- You are so right that students need to have a great presence on both Yahoo and Google in order to get the kind of jobs they work.
Any of us are out networking are selling our names in addition to our products. Our name is our brand so lets treat it right.
I've found this great new service that allows you to create your personal brand on line and helps you obtain a page one relevance and control you personal content by writing your own bio. To see how it works - Google Kathy Greider. Also offers virtual business cards. A green business that helps any one (students, professionals, sales persons, entrepreneur, musicians, authors, artists, technical folks), anyone who wants to be found on the web can now control their personal branding.
Just today, our founder, spoke to a class at UGA providing information regarding how important it is that students need to make a first great e-impression. Currently more than 60% of human resources people Google applicants for jobs before they call to interview.
Google Me -- Kathy Greider see how I control my site for $10 a month
If you are interesting in contacting me please use the greiderbiz@yahoo.com address.
Posted by: kathy | 03.26.08
I was interested in some of these comments. I am a Research Fellow working at UCL with the British Library and Bristol University on a project to better understand personal information management behaviour and what this might mean for digital curation practice. Could you take a look at our survey (at: http://tinyurl.com/5wtwgm) and fill it in? Even better, please, could you forward the following invitation text to any lists or colleagues who might be interested?
Many thanks
Pete Williams
Digital Lives: Helping People to Capture and Secure their Individual Memories, their Personal Creativity, their Shared Historic Moments
Increasingly, our family memories, our personal achievements, our experiences of historical events, are being facilitated and recorded digitally.
Digital Lives is a pathfinding research project that is setting out to understand how individuals retain and manage their personal collections of computerised information - everything from digital photographs and videos to favourite podcasts and sentimental email messages - and how these digital collections can best be captured in the first place and preserved in the long term, perhaps for family history, biographical or other purposes.
The project is led by Dr Jeremy Leighton John and colleagues at the British Library who, together with experts from UCL and Bristol University, are researching the challenges that lie ahead as more and more of our memories and documentary witnesses exist in electronic form.
We would like to invite you to take part in our research by completing an online survey. This should take no more than ten minutes of your time and it will provide us with crucial information that will benefit both individuals such as yourself, in your day to day management and storage of information, and also help the work of the British Library and other archives enormously as we plan for what is fast becoming a largely digital world.
If you would like to take part in the survey, please click here: .
If you would like to enter our Prize Draw and stand a chance of winning £200 in British Library gift vouchers (drawn at random and with no further obligation) you can register your interest at the end of the survey.
Please note that all responses are strictly confidential. No individuals will be named when we report our findings, and the information collected will only be presented in an aggregated form. You will not be contacted again as a result of completing this survey.
If you have any questions, or are concerned about the bona fides of this survey, please email Principal Investigator, Dr Ian Rowlands (UCL School of Library, Archive & Information Studies)at: i.rowlands@ucl.ac.uk
(Digital Lives is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council: Grant number BLRC 8669).
Posted by: Peter Williams | 05.16.08