5 reasons why you should link your lifeblob account with facebook

Yes, you read it right - there is much more you can do by linking your facebook account with lifeblob than you thought. Read on to see how you can quickly get a lot of value by linking your facebook account with lifeblob.

1) Single Sign On
This is the most obvious of all - link up your facebook account with lifeblob and thou shalt have the privilege of signing into lifeblob with your facebook credentials.

2) Timeline from facebook photos
If you maintain your photo albums in facebook, this is your opportunity to turn them into a timeline. We also look at your face tags and automatically turn them into relations that you will see behind the blobs. Trust us, no one can make your photos look better than a lifeblob timeline.

3) Autocomplete includes your facebook friends
There are times when we ask you to enter the name / email ids of your friends, for instance when you create a new blob or when you add a face tag. If you have imported your address book, we assist you by auto-completing the names for you and linking up your facebook account will now get your facebook friends to show up there too. Isn’t it cool?

4) Share your blobs with your facebook friends
You can now add your facebook friends as participants to your blobs. When you do so, we automatically intimate your facebook friends about your new blob. You also have the option of publishing your newly added blob on the facebook news feed so that all your facebook friends get to see it.

5) Get your facebook friends involved in your activities at lifeblob
When you add a comment or perform some other activities inside lifeblob, you have the option of publishing it to your facebook news feed. This is a great way of getting your facebook friends to participate in a discussion on something you like in lifeblob.

We hope you like these and find these valuable means of interaction. If you have more suggestions on how we can help you further, do not hesitate to write to us.

Link your facebook account with lifeblob

We have been beta-testing the facebook connect integration for the past 15 days or so and it is time to make an announcement.

“Facebook connect is now officially live at lifeblob”

For new users, this means that you do not need to create a new account at lifeblob. Simply click the f-connect button to login directly with your facebook account and get a lovely timeline built off your facebook photos.

For our loyal blobbers, if you login with the facebook account next time, we will do our best to match it with your lifeblob account and link them together. However, the fool-proof way to link up your facebook account is to follow the steps below:

1) Select “Manage Imports” from the “My Lifeblob” dropdown.

2) Click on the facebook icon.

3) Click on the f-connect button and login with your facebook account.

Thats all - your lifeblob account will now be linked with your facebook account and you can in future login with either of the two.

Special features for physical communities

We have turned on some special features for physical communities that meet up on a regular basis. If you run such a community, you now have a consolidated system where you can PLAN, RSVP and RECORD all your meets.

Whats more, we allow direct sign-ins using google account, yahoo account and open id so your members don’t need to create yet-another-account to use these features. Sounds unbelievable - check out the video below to find out how you can benefit from it.

Turn your hard drive into a story

If you are one of those who have tons of photos on your hard drive and do not want to go through the hassle of organizing it into albums, we have some good news!

Today we announce  an upgrade to our picasa button where you now have the option of just uploading all your photos and let us do the tedious part of organizing them. Our servers do a good job of grouping together photos that were taken around the same time into a single blob and automatically turn your photos into a beautiful timeline.

Here are the steps:

1) Install Picasa’s latest desktop client on your machine. You can download it from http://picasa.google.com.

2) Install the lifeblob picasa button. You will find the instructions to install it at http://www.lifeblob.com/tools/. This will add a lifeblob button on your picasa button bar - it looks like:

3) Select all the photos that you want to upload and click the lifeblob button in picasa. Please note that picasa imposes a limit of uploading only 400MB of photos at one time.

4) In the screen that shows up, select “Automatically organize photos for me” option.

And thats all - in the next few minutes, all the photos on your hard drive will be converted into a beautiful timeline.

New features in the detailed blob view

With the redesign, there have been a few changes and some new features added to the detailed blob view. Here is a quick glance at the prominent ones.

1) If you are looking to edit a post, take a look at the top-right section of the detailed blob view. You will now be able to selectively edit photos, videos and blob details.

2) You will also find the details of the person who posted and the visibility settings in the top-right section.

3) Participants can now add photos and videos to a blob, though they cannot remove any photos/videos added by other participants. This makes it a great tool for travelogues and parties where everyone has photos to share.

4) If you look below a photo, you will find the caption and any photo tags for that photo. Take your mouse on the photo tag to see the person it belongs to. You can also point your mouse on the face of a person to see their name.

5) To tag a person, simply click on their face and type their name and email id. Tip: If you have imported your address book, we will auto-complete the name for you.

6) You can now comment on individual photos in the comments panel below the photo. These comments also show up in the blob comments area to give you a consolidated view of discussions.

7) Click the “Autoplay” link and we will play all the photos in the blob for you.

We look forward to hearing from you if you liked these changes. Do also send us your requests on other features you would like to see here.

South by Southwest ( SXSW )

The first South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW) was held in 1987 in Austin, Texas. In its 22 years, SXSW has grown from a tiny music festival in the Texas capital into a massive, unavoidable media beast that reflects, discusses and showcases trends in culture and media but also often creates them.

The 2009 edition of SXSW starts tomorrow and we bring you all the action on a SXSW timeline. Follow this timeline to keep yourself posted on the latest updates through the next week and if you are out there and would love to contribute, do give us a shout at contact@lifeblob.com.

Social features around the timeline

This post is part of a series of posts explaining the features of the new lifeblob v2.0 release.]

One of the things we’ve tried to do with the new release is to bring about a seamless integration of social features around the timeline. Here is a low down on what we have to offer:

1) If you are interested in getting updates of a particular timeline, you can now follow that timeline and we will notify you.

2) On the home page, you will now find a timeline that is composed of all blobs that have been added by your friends, or added to the timelines you are following and some popular content. This makes it really easy for you to see what everyone in your network is talking about.

3) We have also added a few widgets to make it easy for you to find other interesting and popular timelines.

4) And as always, we have a status message and a news feed.

4 ways to post to your timeline

[This post is part of a series of posts explaining the features of the new lifeblob v2.0 release.]

Adding posts to your timeline has never been easier. In our never-ending quest to make it easier for you to post stuff onto lifeblob, we’ve added a few new features and simplified some existing ones.

Right below your timeline and also on your home page, we’ve added a nifty little panel that lets you add stuff instantly to your timeline.

• Want to post a photo to your timeline? Just select the file and click post. No further questions!
• A bunch of photos? Sure, just select “Upload an album”.
• We also let you add videos to your timeline. Currently, only YouTube videos are supported.
• Are you the writer kind? Choose the “Write” option and express yourself to your hearts’ content.

For the users of picasa offline photo organizer, we have a picasa button that they can install to upload directly from picasa to lifeblob.

Email is still a very widely used mode of sending photos to friends and the next time you mail your photos to your friends, you can also cc it to me@post.lifeblob.com to have them posted on your timeline - all your friends listed in the mail also get added as participants.

A beautiful new way to see your blobs

[This post is part of a series of posts explaining the features of the new lifeblob v2.0 release.]

Life is beautiful, and so are the moments that you are a part of. And now, they look as beautiful on your timeline too.

When you click on a blob on a timeline, it opens up to show you a detailed view. This has been completely redesigned so that your content not only shines, it looks simply stunning. The dark gray background, the printed newspaper kind of a layout, the ability to view thumbnails and the text along with your media all combine to give you a never-before experience.

Wondering where your relationships and other details of the blob are? Simply scroll down and you will find them all there. You can also change most of these details inline, without leaving the blob - the tags, participants, location and related timelines can all be changed inline.

You can also easily share a blob with your friends by either sending them the URL or by using the “Tell A Friend” button at the top. There is also a “Next” and “Prev” button to make it easy for you to move to the next or previous blob in the order of time.

We have put in a lot of thought on this and we would love to hear how you like it. Do share your feedback!