10 Lifestreaming Services Ranked by Features

/ By

When I first created the Lifestreaming Services Comparison Matrix the small number of services fit quite nicely into a pretty css table. Since then I’ve wanted to add more services and tweak the feature set which proved to be a bit much to fit on a web page. So I’ve migrated the comparison matrix to a spreadsheet and using Scribd to host it (embedded below). It’s not very pretty, but it is functional. Please provide any feedback on additional features or corrections if I’ve missed something. I also plan on updating this frequently by adding more services and features as warranted.

I’ve steered pretty clear of giving recommendations for services on this site as the Lifestreaming space isn’t a “one shoe fits all” type of model that’s easily defined. But after finishing this I decdied to create a simple ranking system based purely by the number of features each site offered. Of course this isn’t a conclusive method of doing this since some features may be more important to some users than others. Still it was fun to have a basis to create a ranking of some sort. I highly recommend looking at the features to help you judge which are most important to help find the right service.

On to the Ranking!
2/29 Update: I added a missed feature on Profilactic and moved it to 3rd place

1. FriendFeed
2. Iminta
3. Profilactic & Plaxo Pulse
4. Jaiku
5. Dandelife
6. iStalkr
7. Correlate.us
 8. Tumblr & Identoo

Lifestream Web Services Comparison

About The Author

I created Lifestream Blog and hope you enjoy the site. I'm always looking for contributors so contact me if you're interested. You can follow the rest of what I like to write about at my personal site.

25 thoughts on “10 Lifestreaming Services Ranked by Features”

  3. Pingback: Los 10 mejores servicios de lifestream

  4. Kevin

    Great work Mark! Like you, my money is on FriendFeed for doing lifestreaming right. Now if only they can offer better widget customization… that’s the ONLY thing hold me back from plugging it on my blog sidebar.

    Too bad we can’t see the spreadsheet in landscape view… perhaps share it via Google Docs?

  5. Mark

    @Harrison – I will be updating this with more services in the future.

    @Kevin – If you go to the Scribd page where the file is hosted you can download the Excel version and view it however you like.

  6. Mark

    Ahhh…I was able to change the doc to portrait and set the print area and make it fit in one page. Looks much better now. Basically just do a print preview before uploading to Scribd and that’s what it will look like. I was also able to do this as a revision so the original embed code got dynamically updated. Very cool.

  7. Pingback: FriendFeed launches; where’s lifestreaming headed?

  8. Thomas Huhn

    Hi Mark,

    thanks for the work you’ve been putting in this overview.

    Anyway I would like to say that counting by the features you selected for your comparison lifestrea.ms would be the number one on the list by far with at least 26 features.

    On the other hand the feature list is restricted to the sites you’ve been checking so far and lifestrea.ms has a couple of additional features that cannot be found on your list and also not with the services there.

    E.g. lifestrea.ms has APML support, imports OPML, supports true data portability by using XFN and hCard on your profiles, supports several profiles to allow you to distinguish private, family and business life etc. etc.

    I hope you will find the time to add lifestrea.ms to your list soon.

    Thanks,
    Thomas

  9. Pingback: Microblogging: segnalazioni del 28.02.08 | Microblogging.it

  10. Mark

    Thomas,

    I will definitely be adding lifestrea.ms in the next update soon. Regarding the initial feature set, I was trying to define a common set across the sites. Each site usually has some smaller unique features that distinguish them and I didn’t want to list those. That being said I think the standards support that you mention (APML, XFN, hCard) are important to add.

    Another feature you didn’t mention which I had planned to add to the next feature set is the ability to publish to external services. I know that lifestrea.ms offers that for some services as well.

  12. Pingback: Your Life is in My Stream « The Guidewire

  13. Christopher Clay

    With at least 14 of these features, Soup.io would come in 5th in this ranking.
    According to this list, we’re the only service that combines full lifestreaming functionality (unlimited number of feeds, username entry for popular services, feed legend, etc) with customizable layout (skins & custom CSS) and a custom domain option. To many of our users it’s crucially important to have their lifestream run at their own domain and in the style they like, instead of it ending up being yet another profile on a branded site.
    So for the benefit of people looking for that particular combination, we’d appreciate it if you found the time to add Soup to this overview 🙂

  14. Pingback: FriendFeed Lines It All Up : Awakened Voice

  15. Pingback: theory.isthereason » Today’s Links: We Humans Are Machines for Propagating Memes

  16. Pingback: This Week’s Bookmarks at Not So Relevant

  19. Pingback: Lifestreaming aggregators

Comments are closed.