Not entirely breaking news, no, but the more I think about it the more excited I get: Sweetcron is going to change the face of lifestreaming. Designed by this totally rad looking guy named Yongfook, this soon to be released self-hosted automated lifestreaming blog software (what a mouthful!) has gotten some recent coverage in my favorite tech blog Read/Write Web that has me impatiently drooling for the software’s release.
The project’s main splash page marks Sweetcron’s four main drawing points:
- automatic imports
- simple customization
- self-hosted
- free and open source
Hasn’t this been done before?
At first glance Sweetcron might seem to be a mere clone of aggregation tumblelogs such as Tumblr or Swurl, but the little bit we’ve seen of it so far suggests that won’t be the case. Whereas Tumblr and Swurl aggregate online activity, a service like Sweetcron is designed to combine the different facets of your existence whether you’re plugged in or not; this is the draw to me.
Lifestreaming is a fascinating niche that becomes more and more developed every day, even if the more subtle changes aren’t publicized like a new WordPress release.
Challenges to face
Even though Sweetcron seems remarkably promising, as far as I’m concerned it and similar services face two major challenges: appropriately documenting offline activity, and remaining social.
- It’s easy to automate Digg activity to go straight to your lifestream. Digg a story, a new entry appears. However, it’s not so easy to wire this relationship into the outside world, for instance, for blogging software to automatically realize you enjoyed lunch at a brand new restaurant. How can lifestreaming de-emphasize the internet? Low-cost photography and video tools entering the hands of everyday consumers help to mitigate this divide, but we aren’t there yet.
- Chances are also good that unless you’re a remarkably interesting person or a celebrity of some sort, lifestreams won’t get a lot of traffic if there’s not a sticky social functionality built in. How do you keep other users interested in your own everyday dealings? Perhaps innovators like iJustine know the secret, but we all can’t be so charismatic.
When the best solution is to wait
I’m eager to delve into the lifestreaming area myself, but for now, there really aren’t any suitable tools for doing so. This is why I’m jumping into Sweetcron the moment I have the opportunity. All of the tools for the task at the moment merely approximate lifestreaming, rather than get the job done. Just like you wouldn’t cut down a tree without a saw, I’m not going to get involved with this niche until I’ve got promising Sweetcron installed on my web host.
(Yes, that means that early access to Sweetcron would not be wasted here, Yongfook!)
Want to see more examples of lifestreaming in action: hit some examples of Sweetcron, a custom design, and Swurl with Yongfook, Julia Allison, and me, in that order.
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Andy, you got me excited about Sweetcron. Wow!. Also enjoyed the 3 lifestreaming links.
all over the place! Not as pretty as Yongfook’s though. But it is available now.
One thing that I think will be necessary for a tool like this is an easy-to-use api so that other developers can quickly and easily include services which the tool doesn’t include by default. Though I suppose that goes without saying these days! Or even better, some RSS-like standardised format for services like Twitter to publish and lifestream tools to consume.
As for offline integration, I’m not sure how possible it is to get any more integrated than Twitter updates from your mobile phone. Does flickr allow uploads directly from mobiles (e.g., via MMS)? Aside from updates via txt/email how much more integrated can we get without brain-computer interfaces?
(though I really really can’t wait for the day when I can just think “I just had the most awesome breakfast!” and it’ll automatically notify my friends)
Andy, you got me excited about Sweetcron. Wow!. Also enjoyed the 3 lifestreaming links.
Lifestreams are popping up all over the place! Not as pretty as Yongfook’s though. But it is available now.
One thing that I think will be necessary for a tool like this is an easy-to-use api so that other developers can quickly and easily include services which the tool doesn’t include by default. Though I suppose that goes without saying these days! Or even better, some RSS-like standardised format for services like Twitter to publish and lifestream tools to consume.
As for offline integration, I’m not sure how possible it is to get any more integrated than Twitter updates from your mobile phone. Does flickr allow uploads directly from mobiles (e.g., via MMS)? Aside from updates via txt/email how much more integrated can we get without brain-computer interfaces?
(though I really really can’t wait for the day when I can just think “I just had the most awesome breakfast!” and it’ll automatically notify my friends)
Bernard? If a default theme is so slick, I can barely even imagine how other designers will improve upon it. Can’t wait to use it!
Mark: You’re right, although they’re much more ‘lifestreams’ in name than the other versions since they basically appear as simple streams of data. I had bumped into SimpleLife before but hadn’t seen ComplexLife; thanks for the link!
I agree with you on the standards idea, too. FriendFeed seems to have it right with its enormous number of imports, but there are still many that only support a handful such as Socialthing!.
I guess you’re right with that last point, too; I can’t think of any way we’ll be able to lifestream more fully without becoming cyborgs ourselves (who knows, though, that sort of thing might be closer than we think). I think there are still wide possibilities available for the modalities we can record: sight, sound, and spatial concepts to an extent… off the top of my head, it’d be neat if you could wear a little recorder and your daily conversations could be converted or broadcasted into a searchable text…
Before long lifestreaming may mimic telepathy, if we can pass along how delicious our breakfasts were to others, wirelessly!
Looks great, doesn’t it, Bernard? If a default theme is so slick, I can barely even imagine how other designers will improve upon it. Can’t wait to use it!
Mark: You’re right, although they’re much more ‘lifestreams’ in name than the other versions since they basically appear as simple streams of data. I had bumped into SimpleLife before but hadn’t seen ComplexLife; thanks for the link!
I agree with you on the standards idea, too. FriendFeed seems to have it right with its enormous number of imports, but there are still many that only support a handful such as Socialthing!.
I guess you’re right with that last point, too; I can’t think of any way we’ll be able to lifestream more fully without becoming cyborgs ourselves (who knows, though, that sort of thing might be closer than we think). I think there are still wide possibilities available for the modalities we can record: sight, sound, and spatial concepts to an extent… off the top of my head, it’d be neat if you could wear a little recorder and your daily conversations could be converted or broadcasted into a searchable text…
Before long lifestreaming may mimic telepathy, if we can pass along how delicious our breakfasts were to others, wirelessly!