Profilactic named #1 lifestreaming service
I got a nice surprise upon returning from SXSWi this morning. I found a Google alert for Dan Taylor's review of social media aggregators and lifestreaming services.
Dan named Profilactic #1 ahead of sites like FriendFeed (#3), Iminta (#4) and Plaxo Pulse (#5). Here is what he said:
"Launched way back in 2006, Profilactic is the daddy of social aggregators, not least because it's notched up support for an astonishing 144 services. It also has a decent UI and some nice bits of functionality, including search and filtering of your 'mashup' (poor choice of label imo - too many other connotations). I also like the fact that it pulls in decent sized Flickr images rather than thumbnails, although I guess that's just personal preference and others may feel they take up too much space. Perhaps Profilactic's most compelling feature (now shared by newcomer socialthing!) is that it automatically draws on your friend lists from the services you add rather than forcing you to add them manually, which removes a massive barrier to take up.
Pros: number of services supported, search & filtering, large Flickr photos, automatically pulls in friends from other services
Cons: Lacks the design elegance of socialthing!"
He gave us 5 stars for features, ease of use and overall while giving us 4 stars on design which is not surprising since we don't actually have a designer on the team :)
This serves as validation of what we've been working so hard to build over the past couple of years. It also makes us feel good to know that our bootstrapped, part-time project beat out heavily-funded, full-time projects like FriendFeed and Plaxo Pulse.
Thanks again, Dan!
Dan named Profilactic #1 ahead of sites like FriendFeed (#3), Iminta (#4) and Plaxo Pulse (#5). Here is what he said:
"Launched way back in 2006, Profilactic is the daddy of social aggregators, not least because it's notched up support for an astonishing 144 services. It also has a decent UI and some nice bits of functionality, including search and filtering of your 'mashup' (poor choice of label imo - too many other connotations). I also like the fact that it pulls in decent sized Flickr images rather than thumbnails, although I guess that's just personal preference and others may feel they take up too much space. Perhaps Profilactic's most compelling feature (now shared by newcomer socialthing!) is that it automatically draws on your friend lists from the services you add rather than forcing you to add them manually, which removes a massive barrier to take up.
Pros: number of services supported, search & filtering, large Flickr photos, automatically pulls in friends from other services
Cons: Lacks the design elegance of socialthing!"
He gave us 5 stars for features, ease of use and overall while giving us 4 stars on design which is not surprising since we don't actually have a designer on the team :)
This serves as validation of what we've been working so hard to build over the past couple of years. It also makes us feel good to know that our bootstrapped, part-time project beat out heavily-funded, full-time projects like FriendFeed and Plaxo Pulse.
Thanks again, Dan!
profilactic
lifestreaming
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Comments:
I'm certainly in agreement on the ranking! And, as far as interfaces go, I actually prefer Profilactic to many of those competitors.
Still, I do think that claiming "an astonishing 144 services" is a little dubious. I mean, as far lifeSTREAMING goes, the other services mentioned in this post focus on including sites that have some type of AGGREGATABLE feed. I'd be curious to know how many of Profilactic's 144 services have RSS feeds. (for the record, the number is currently 28 for FriendFeed and Iminta and 34 for Plaxo)
Still, I do think that claiming "an astonishing 144 services" is a little dubious. I mean, as far lifeSTREAMING goes, the other services mentioned in this post focus on including sites that have some type of AGGREGATABLE feed. I'd be curious to know how many of Profilactic's 144 services have RSS feeds. (for the record, the number is currently 28 for FriendFeed and Iminta and 34 for Plaxo)
Anish, I did a quick scan of our database and it looks like about 80 of the sites we support have RSS feeds.
Congrats on the ranking.
I'm a big fan of Profilactic for creating my own mashup, but had never really used the service to look at my friends mashups. Looking at that tab now I see there are some functions that could make it a winner in this area too.
- Showing who posted the content. Some (e.g. Magnolia) or maybe all types seem to just show 'friend of me', so I can't see who it was who actually posted the item.
- The default feed includes friends on Profilactic and friends from other services. This is a bit confusing maybe, especially as the RSS feed for the friend maship page only gives you the content of your Profilactic friends.
- Filtering of friends mashup by friend and content source
I'm a big fan of Profilactic for creating my own mashup, but had never really used the service to look at my friends mashups. Looking at that tab now I see there are some functions that could make it a winner in this area too.
- Showing who posted the content. Some (e.g. Magnolia) or maybe all types seem to just show 'friend of me', so I can't see who it was who actually posted the item.
- The default feed includes friends on Profilactic and friends from other services. This is a bit confusing maybe, especially as the RSS feed for the friend maship page only gives you the content of your Profilactic friends.
- Filtering of friends mashup by friend and content source
Andrew, thanks for the excellent suggestions. Those are actually all things we have in the works.
I'll send you a note when they go live.
Thanks again.
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I'll send you a note when they go live.
Thanks again.
