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About three months ago I started to fall in love with social aggregation – also sometiems referred to as lifestreaming (even though there is a difference I think). The main reason why I love social aggregation so much is because it allows me to keep tabs on my friends all over the Web & all in one place. Also, it allows people to see what I’m up to as well.
According to Wikipedia,
“Social network aggregation is the process of collecting content from multiple social network services, such as MySpace or Facebook. The task is often performed by a social network aggregator, which pulls together information into a single location, or helps a user consolidate multiple social networking profiles into one profile.”
Now, there are a lot & I mean a LOT of social aggregators on the Web already & many are popping up frequently. The newer ones that are popping up seem to be going a step beyond aggregation & allowing you to interact with others as well as many other added features. In my opinion, added features are always a good thing & makes a social aggregator 10 times better!
I have tried out very many social aggregators, but these are my “top 10″ choices (in order).
1. Socialthing! allows you to see everything that’s going on with your friends on all of your social networks & allows you to interact with multiple sites at one time. “It’s a news feed for every site that you use in one place.” The reason why I love Socialthing! is because you can respond to content on other sites directly from Socialthing! For example, you can respond to a Twitter tweet on Socialthing! & it will show up on Twitter. The same thing goes for the other 12 sites that Socialthing! supports. Besides Twitter, Socialthing! currently supports: Del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, Pownce, YouTube, Brightkite, Guitar Hero, Plurk, Seesmic & Vimeo.
2. FriendFeed has been the talk of the Internet for quite awhile now. Mainly, everyone has been comparing it to Socialthing! & Twitter. I find this funny because these three aggregators are nothing alike. I find FriendFeed to be one of the greatest discussion tools online plus there are a lot of applications, widgets & plugins out there for it. “FriendFeed enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing.” FriendFeed currently supports 41 social media sites. Be sure to subscribe to me here!
3. Profilactic is the granddaddy of social aggregators (in my opinion). Profilactic supports 186 social media sites; that’s a lot of sites! Plus, you can add as many custom URLs/feeds as you want. “Profilactic is a social media aggregator/lifestreaming service that pulls together just about everything you and your friends create online.” Profilactic also recently added Ping.fm support, which allows you to update your status for 19 different social media sites at the same time, all from one place (your Profilactic profile).
4. Flock is actually a Web browser with a built in social aggregator. “Log into your social networks and Flock will bring your friends to you.” Flock has so many added features besides “people in the browser” as they call it & is definitely worth using. Since Flock is powered by Mozilla, the same platform that Firefox is built on, it’s a great alternative for Firefox lovers who are also social media addicts. At the moment, Flock only supports 6 social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Pownce & Digg but, I hear that they have lots more sites in the works including MySpace. Plus, Flock has a lot of other added features like a blog editor, drop-and-drag image uploading & built in RSS reader.
5. Strands is a simple & easy to use aggregator that helps you discover new things from your friends. Strands supports 19 social media sites & allows you to add your own custom URL or RSS feeds (kind of like Profilactic). What makes Strands unique is their Tracker. Even though I do have an iTunes issue with the Tracker, I think that’s a great tool & has definite potential. “The desktop application, lovingly referred to as the Strands Tracker, enables you to passively track what you are doing (and creating) and share it with your friends and followers. Currently the Tracker can capture data about what you are listening to, what’s in your media library, and what playlists you have created in your favorite media players.” You can follow me on Strands here.
6. Swurl “brings all your web content together into a blog format. Swurl supports your existing blog, pictures, links, videos, and more.” Currently, Swurl supports 19 social media sites. Your content is displayed in chronological order & like FriendFeed, Swurl encourages discussions instead of just comments. In my opinion, I see Swurl as a FriendFeed competitor because they are setup a lot alike, though Swurl doesn’t have rooms…… yet. I definitely have taken a linking to Swurl & plan on using it more often.
7. Iminta is exactly what it says, it shows what “I’m into”. “Iminta lets you connect to what you and your friends find, all in one place. And you decide what each friend sees from your profile and what you see from theirs, because Iminta’s unique filters put you in control. It doesn’t overload you with everything they do; it highlights what they find.” Gotta love those filter controls! Iminta supports 32 social media sites & I think it’s a very underrated site. Also, the interface is unique & allows you to favorite, email or blog content from your own or your friends’ lifestream.
8. Facebook is not a social aggregator but it does have social aggregation capabilities. There’s the recently enhanced mini-feed that allows you to import “stories” into it & also allows you to add comments on your friends’ mini-feeds. There’s also various Facebook aggregation applications that you can use on your profile like: Lifestream.fm (which I’m also a member of also but it didn’t make this top list), FriendFeed & RSS Aggregator. In my opinion, Facebook is another underrated site & is way more beneficial than MySpace could ever be. Plus, as the Web continues to evolve, so does Facebook (unlike MySpace). Wanna connect? You can find me here.
9. Plaxo Pulse, recently acquired by Comcast, is used to “discover the great content your friends are creating all over the web — and share your own.” Plaxo Pulse (a social aggregator) is a part of Plaxo (a business network) which allows you to make both business & friend connections. Plaxo Pulse supports 41 social media sites plus it allows you to add your own URLs (kind of like Profilactic). To me, Plaxo is kind of like a mashup of Profilactic & LinkedIn with the added content filters feature from Iminta. Feel free to connect with me here.
10. Secondbrain supports 21 social media sites & is last on my list because I had a lot of issues when I first joined. You can read my initial disgruntled review here. Since then, my experience with Secondbrain has been a lot better & I’m really impressed with the improvements. “Secondbrain is your personal content library. We make it really easy to manage all your bookmarks, social media and files in one place.” What makes Secondbrain stand out from the rest are the contests that they hold. For their last contest they gave out a Macbook Air to the 1st place winner, an Xbox to 2nd place, an iPod to 3rd place & Amazon gift cards to 4th – 10th. Now that’s what I call appreciating your members! I can be found here, feel free to follow me.
Now that I gave you my list, I’d love to hear your favorite(s). I know a lot of people will disagree with my list, which is quite alright with me. Feel free to leave feedback, thoughts & comments!
Technorati Tags: social aggregator, lifestream, socialthing, twitter, friendfeed, profilactic, ping.fm, flock browser, strands, swurl, iminta, facebook, lifestream.fm, rss aggregator, plaxo, plaxo pulse, secondbrain
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great article, its incredible how much stuff is out there most of these sites still overwhelm me because of all the information you can see at once. Trying to get used to it all.
A new one to check out (still early private beta) is Combo.com
It pulls in your contact, content, activity and messages into a single UI!
iPhone app will come out soon and blow everyone minds. Promise.
How about MyBlogLog ?
Some of the links from your article were hacked. Ex: Socialthing! go http://u-vli4g8sv5.urlcash.net/, Fiendfeed, Profilactic and others.
Do any sites aggregate Facebook and MySpace? Does anyone know of a script that can import MySpace profiles (with permission obviously)
Hey getra….. I know of a few that have both Facebook & MySpace. You can try Fuser (https://www.fuser.com/), Pageonce (https://www.pageonce.com/), Digsby (http://digsby.com) & I’m not sure but Gridji (http://www.gridjit.com/) might also.
But I don’t know of a script for important MySpace profiles…. not really sure what you mean by that.
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Hi webmaster!
Nice compilation ChaCha. Thanks for sharing.
Btw what’s up with the hacked links ?
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Great Collection. It got me thinking about how many social media sites there are. Now there’s power.com as well which recently launched.
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The links aren’t hacked, I just used URLCash.net for them.
If you check out the site you’ll see what it is & understand. LOL. I’ve never heard of “hacked links”.
Thanks for sharing Diamondtearz. Haven’t heard of Power.com but I’ll definitely check it out.
Thanx a lot for the list. Very helpful indeed.
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No problem. Glad you found it helpful.
Don’t forget about Youmeo. IMO, the best one out there by far.
http://www.youmeo.com
Yea I’ve tried Youmeo. I didn’t know about it back when I wrote this post. I didn’t really like it but it’s definitely one to try.