image courtesy of Flickr user Bill Barber

The other day I got this email from a reader:

Hello,
I’m a big fan of your blog and lifestreaming in general. I was wondering if you could help me out. A very good friend of mine passed recently, and I wanted to create an online memorial, reflecting his online life. He was on many sites. I’ve tried using Sweetcron, however it will only pull info from the latest rss feeds. What I’m looking for is a service that allows you to login to many accounts and pulls information from the beginning.

Do you have any suggestions on a service that might do this? I thought sweetcron would be great, so I could set it to randomize the postings to keep the site more lively and less static, so that would be a great feature to have as well.

Much thanks for your help.

-Sean

I’ve given thought to and discussed using Lifestreams as archived memorials in the past but really have never explored methods on how to achieve it. I spent a little time thinking about this but didn’t feel like I really had a good answer for Sean.

Regardless, I wanted to give him some ideas nonetheless so I responded with this:

Sean,
I gave this some thought tonight and the problem you may encounter is that some sites may not provide a fully archived feed using the standard RSS url. I think it will vary depending on the service. If you come across feeds that don’t provide enough info, then you may want to contact the site to see if there is a way to get access to the full feed somehow. I can’t currently think of another way around that issue.

But if you have a complete feed over a long period of time, then you have a few options that I can think of right now:
http://storytlr.com is a service that is very nice and is the only one that I know of that offers the ability to create “story’s” where you can define services to pull in feed data as well as the start / end date. I’ve attached a screenshot for you to see what I mean.

Other than that you may also want to try one of the timeline based lifestreaming services such as http://allofme.com , http://lifeblob.com, http://dipity.com or http://dandelife.com . I have reviews of some of these here: http://lifestreamblog.com/create/ .

Hope this helps a little. If I come across anything else I’ll let you know.

Mark

Lifestreaming is still very much in its infancy but it is clear that it’s becoming the digital diary of the new millennium. My grandparents died when I was very young and I never got to hear them tell their story. All I have are photo albums and the stories from the rest of the family. How amazing would it be to have access to rich Lifestreams of our ancestors to hear about their lives in their own words? Well as more people begin adopting Lifestreaming, and the services get perfected to achieve this, I think Lifestream memorials will become a reality in the future.

Now I’ll say that I haven’t had a chance to give this too much more thought, but I wanted to just think out loud and share my thoughts with you on this. Perhaps some of you can provide insight or ideas in the comments on a recipe to achieve this with current tools, or perhaps a developer will read this and incorporate some of these ideas into an existing service or create a new one. I see this as something that will become a VERY important aspect of Lifestreaming in the future.

I see creating a memorial from a Lifestream posing a few challenges. As Sean stated, using the standard logic of a reverse chronological way to display the data just doesn’t work. I offered a few options, but none quite offer a great solution.

I see the following as some issues / features necessary to create a memorial:

1. Getting full data exports from the services used to create the Lifestream / Memorial
2. Providing the ability to curate (manually select) individual stream items into custom views (Timeline, calendar, events, etc.)
3. Ability to manually add items and inject them (timeframe-wise) anywhere into the Lifestream (photos, videos, documents, scans, etc)
4. Offer an online, offline, or combination of both ways to view the content
5. Support more than 1 person to create a Familystream

I’m sure I can think of more but just want to get the brain juices going. I think we have some of these features and functionality scattered across existing services on the web but nothing that combines them all cohesively for this type of application.

For the first issue of getting the data, I’m not sure how it could be accomplished as I think it’s dependent on the services the data is stored on and how easy it is to get access to it. In most cases simply supplying an RSS feed won’t cut it and every service will have its own unique method of getting a full data dump, if that’s even possible. Some current services that I can think of that exist that could be helpful here are Gnip, Lifestreambackup, Storytlr (offers exporting) and BackupMyTweets & BackupMyPics.

Most Lifestreaming services only offer the standard reverse chronological method of displaying data. As I mentioned in the email there are a few other options with Timeline based Lifestreaming services and Storytlr, but that’s not flexible enough for creating a Memorial.

There also isn’t the ability to manually add items (including from your local computer) with more control over parameters such as a specific date and time although a service I covered a while back that is still around and now open source called Dandelife had the ability to do it at the month/year level.

I also see a memorial app as needing an offline or local client version. There are many reasons for this including portability, distribution, using local assets, etc. The app would need to offer the ability to import from external services as well as use local assets. This makes me think of an app / service like Picasa which offers both online and offline components that can communicate with each other. I also believe Picasa has some of the curating functions as well.

Anyways, I find this topic very interesting and a new fork in the Lifestreaming road. I’m hoping it inspires someone to create something we can all use to do this in the future. While I’m on this subject I thought I’d also mention another relevant and thought provoking article written by Mike Fruchter titled What happens to our social profiles after we die? which touches similar issues that you may find interesting

UPDATE:
I didn’t mention ThisMoment which is another “timeline based” Lifestreaming service that also has some nice features that could be used to create a memorial. You can also find reviews of them on Webware, Mashable, and ReadWriteWeb.

Erin Blaskie recently did a presentation on Lifestreaming at WordCamp in Montreal. She has made her slides available via Slidshare and someone recorded her presentation on Qik. I have provided both of these below and if you listen closely and switch the slides as she speaks you can follow along.

Erin does a nice job of using a mindmap to help illustrate the flow of data to web services that make up her Lifestream. It reminded me of the social map I created to illustrate mine a while back as well.

Erin’s presentation is a case study for how she created her Lifestream. It can be found at her extremely colorful site aptly named “Lifestreaming in pure, unedited color” at Lifestreamincolor.com. She uses embedded widgets in her sidebar sharing videos from Ustream, her travels using Tripit, micro-blogging using Twitter, music from Blip.fm, books she’s reading with Shelfari, and photos with Twitpic for her Lifestream alongside her blog. She also has a dedicated Lifestream page using the Wordpress Lifestream plugin with a custom SweetCronesque look to it.

One of the biggest criticisms I see of Lifestreaming is complaints that it is narcissistic behavior. People also reject them stating that people’s lives just aren’t interesting enough to follow them. A popular negative stereotype of Twitter users is that many just offer up boring updates of what they had for lunch. I’m here to tell you that Lifestreams can be much more than this and I now find many of them to be invaluable.

Think of your Lifestream as a blank canvas. There are no strict rules for what you should paint yours with. I’m here to provide you with 5 elements I use to create mine while trying to keep it fresh and interesting to attract and keep followers.
image courtesy of Flickr user Brent and Marilyn

1. Your Hobby or Personal Passion

All of us have these and finding multiple ways to incorporate them into your Lifestream is great way to keep it interesting. If you create or discover content related to them you should have the related services you use piped into your Lifestream. I use Delicious, Google shared items, and Twitter as a way to share the content I discover on the web with others. I use YouTube, my Blog, and Flickr to create content related to them to share in my Lifestream.

2. Local News / Events

I tend to follow a large number of Lifestreams for people who are local to me in LA and vice versa. I often share events that I attend or have interest in to my Lifestream using Upcoming. I also enjoy taking  photos of my dishes and sharing the location of local restaurants I eat at using Brightkite. You could also share reviews of restaurants using Yelp and add those to your Lifestream.

3. Your Work

We spend so much of our time doing it so it’s an important aspect of a Lifestream. I often discuss tools and services I use to make my job easier or ways to collaborate with co-workers. I also provide updates about what my company is doing or what related businesses are doing in my field. There is plenty of ways to provide both interesting and valuable information to others about your line of work.

4. Funny, Bizarre, Interesting Things

You know those wacky emails you get from your friends with crazy pictures or videos or those really interesting things you discover on a daily basis on the web. I usually will find one from someone whom I follow on Twitter and Retweet it with my witty add-on attached. Another common way I get these into my Lifestream is by favoriting a video on YouTube. There’s usually a handful of these that make their way into my stream on a daily basis and sharing these always provides a nice temporary distration.

5. Personal Life

Yes, regardless of what the naysayers I mentioned in the beginning say, everybody has interesting aspects of their life to share. Whether it’s a trip to a great place where you pipe your images into your Lifestream, or the milestones achieved by your kids, it’s all worthy of sharing. It’s great to get this information and I often find myself using it to spark discussions when I meet these people IRL. It’s also especially nice to provide these updates for long distance friends and family relationships where we don’t keep in touch as often with them.

I also like to share as much of the media I consume as possible. This can provide a pretty strong profile of my interests. I share the music I listen to using Last.fm, Blip.fm, and Pandora. I share books I’m reading using GoodReads, and movies I’m watching using Netflix. Once again, quite often these personal details I discover on other’s Lifestreams are recommendations. I have come across great new music, books,  and have eaten at fantastic restaurants solely based on the Lifestreams of people I follow.

If you need to discover some new services to add to your Lifestream, be sure to check out the Define page for some ideas.

…in conclusion

I follow the Lifestreams of many people that incorporate these and other methods to keep them appealing. I feel Lifestreaming has evolved into a way for people to curate web content and Life’s experiences interestingly in bite sized chunks for the world to see. Lifestreaming has created a new subscription model. I now subscribe to people much the same way I do RSS feeds for blogs. The difference is that my network of Lifestreamers provides a human powered way to bubble up great content to me.

If you create a nice balance of items from the above categories (or others you come up with) in your Lifestream you are likely to attract and retain people who share similar interests who will look to you as  someone to help provide them with daily content as well.

Leave a comment with details of unique ways that you populate your Lifestream to keep it fun and interesting below.

Last week InspiredMag wrote a post listing 10 Wordpress themes for your blog with details along with links to live demos for each of them. I had several of these already listed in the create section as well as some that aren’t on there. I have since added these to the ever-growing list.

One thing to keep in mind is that all but one of these are premium themes (read they’re not free) ranging from $25-70. Still they are definitely worth taking a look at if Lifestreaming is an important component of your Wordpress blog and you’re looking for ways to enhance it. At the very least they could be used to provide inspiration (as the site’s title suggests) for your own personal design.

Props to InspiredMag for discovering and highlighting this batch of Lifestreaming Wordpress themes. I’m very happy that Lifestreaming continues to get good exposure in the design community.

This is a guest post from reader Trae Blain. You can visit his site at traeblain.com. If you are interested in writing a guest post, just head on over to the contact page.

AOL has recently rolled out changes to their popular AIM instant messaging service. Utilizing the skills and knowledge from their acquisition of SocialThing, AIM has become much more useful. AOL’s approach is different from the other major internet titans lifestream integrations. Where Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo have added lifestreams to user’s profiles; AOL has seamlessly integrated it into their most popular service. The effects are worth noting.

AIM’s lifestreaming integration is seen on two layers. A website that pulls all your friends activity from various services into an activity timeline, and also by placing that same stream into their latest AIM client (currently in beta).  In the simplest of terms, the website collects your friends activity and turns your AIM status message into a Twitter-like update. The My Updates section provides your lifestream from the supported products.

AIM’s service list is rather small right now, but based on the supported list the same SocialThing team worked out for Bebo, I would expect more soon. Currently AIM supports Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Delicious. Also in there is AIM itself. Various privacy settings allow you to limit the noise a bit by controlling who gets to see your lifestream. Key to this initiative is AOL’s application of the Lifestream to it’s AIM client. By placing the lifestream in it’s popular IM client, it simplifies the ability to follow other other people’s updates by using one nice program.

The biggest drawback to the service is it’s lack of integration with each supported service. It brings all those activities into one spot, which means if you are already an active AIM user you no longer have to have multiple programs up to follow people’s activity. Yet, the ability to update those services is not available. So when @krynsky posts the next best lifestreaming tool, I can see the link and follow it but I cannot reply to him or comment on that update. The lack of this feature really dampens the usefulness of the lifestream.I could easily see this feature be much like Facebook’s wall-post commenting system, but not yet I’m afraid.

I indicated in the start of the post that this is something worth noting. This is significant for two reasons. One, it tells all those AIM users (one of AOL most popular products and possibly still the most active instant messaging service) that AIM is still being developed and evolving. Two, this is one of the most logical steps in the evolution of lifestreaming and it’s great to see it happen.

Lifestreaming is more and more being used as a communications medium. The aggregation of your life’s events into one place is a way of communicating those events to friends, extended friends, and beyond. I’ve always thought that a lifestream is ripe for a service like Meebo (or other IM services) to jump into. Often times a published event/status/video/etc sparks conversation (a concept FriendFeed has harnessed very well) that would make for great instant chat room topic discussion. The merging of instant messaging/chat into the lifestream flow is an exciting thing to see.