Lifeblob's World

This is the question that I get asked most frequently these days. So this is my first attempt to explain the essence of the service and more importantly, why we exist.

LifeBlob’s mission is to help people connect their lives with the world around them.

We started lifeblob because we were not happy with what existing services provide us ( yes, including facebook ). We believed that there had to be a much better way for people to network and we started out with zeal to discover that. Three months and a couple of prototypes later, we had something interesting in our hands, something that we call lifeblob today.

What is lifeblob ?

Simply put, lifeblob is your personal diary, with a social angle to it. We also call it your timeline. Just like you would write in your personal diary about your experiences, the events that happened in your life and stick pictures to make it memorable, we allow you to make posts on your timeline to capture those precious memories.

What differentiates lifeblob is that your timeline has a social angle to it. When you make a post, you can include a list of people who are related to the post or who were participants if the post is about a real event. And in a flash, the post not only becomes a part of your timeline, but also becomes a part of the timelines of all the participants. So imagine, if you and all your friends start posting on lifeblob and add each other as participants for relevant posts, you would get all the information relevant to you delivered right on your timeline. Now that is “effortless networking” – the information finds you rather than you finding it.

But that is not all, lifeblob also lets you add tags and places to a post and believe it or not, tags and places also have timelines. So whenever you add a tag or place to your post, it also becomes a part of these timelines. But whats the point ? It presents very interesting ways to slice and dice your life on various axes and also discover like-minded people. More about this in another post.

Why should I use lifeblob ?

Simply because:

• Its easy
• Its fun
• Its addictive
• Its valuable

To the last point, everything that you talk about with your friends and family through lifeblob becomes a part of your personal diary automatically. And anyday you wish, you can go back and replay your life just like a movie. And if you choose, you can also pass on access to this information to your future generations, so they know you better.

How do I get started ?

We currently allow users to signup on an invitation basis only. If someone you know is already a member of lifeblob, you can ask them for an invite. Otherwise, you can register your name for an invite on our home page and we will send it to you when we have the capacity.

This is what a timeline looks like ( click to enlarge ):

Inviting your friends to use lifeblob is really easy. Going with our philosophy of “effortless networking”, you will not find a Invite Friend button anywhere.

Instead, whenever you make a post on your timeline that includes participants, two things happen:

• The participants that are already using lifeblob get the post on their timeline.
• The participants that do not have a lifeblob account get an invite in their inbox.

Everyone gets 10 invites when they sign up. Additional invites will be extended based on your usage of the service and the usage of the friends that you invite.

We have always believed that social networking should be effortless. We believe that you should simply focus on talking to people you care about and everything else should be served to you without you needing to ask for it.

And as a first step towards that, we bring you a feature that we have been working for the past few weeks to achieve. So here is our addition to what’s cool and what’s not-so-cool:

Not-So-Cool

Clicking the “Add Friend” link to add a person to your friend list.

Really Cool

Relax on your sofa and watch your friends automatically find way to your friend’s list.

So the next time you login, check out the friends list on the right side of the timeline and tell us if we are doing a good job of finding your friends for you.

Now, in addition to importing blogs, you can also import your albums from Flickr and Picasa. And we don’t just import photos – we also import your comments, tags and geo-tagging information and automatically link up your post with the respective tag and place timelines.

Running the photo importer is really simple:

• Click on ‘Apps‘ to see the available applications

• Select Photo Importer

• Select the service from where you want to import photos

And woosh!, in less than a minute, you will have a beautiful timeline showing all your precious memories. We do not ask for your password ( you will be taken to the google/yahoo login page for authentication ) and the posts on your timeline have the same visibility settings as your photo albums.

So import your photo albums and blob on!!

This is a question that we get asked often. And when we think of how best we can help you build your timeline, the first thought that comes is: how about helping you organize the data that you already have floating in this digital universe ?

Everything that you have ever posted on internet has its timestamp stored with it. And what would be a better way to organize it than to arrange it chronologically.

As the first step, we have added support to allow you to import your blog into your timeline. And it doesn’t take more than a minute to import your blog ( really!! ). Here is how you can do it:

• Select ‘Apps‘ from the top navigation control

• Choose Blog Importer

• Enter the Blog URL / Feed URL ( atom/rss) and select the provider name hosting your blog.

Before you can import your blog, you need to prove that you are really the owner of the blog you are trying to import. If your blog is hosted by blogger, you will need to authenticate yourself on the google accounts page. For blogs hosted on other providers, you will need to embed a claim token in your blog.

• And its done. If your blogs have comments or geo-tagging information, we import that that as well.

All your blog posts will have public visibility. So next time you have to impress someone, import your blog and show them your timeline instead

This is a big day for us. The past few months of effort finally saw light of day with launch of the Lifeblob application framework.

What is it ?

The application development framework allows anyone to build applications that live right on your timeline. The framework provides APIs to allow access to auth tokens, friends list, the UI containers etc and gives freedom to a developer to build and publish applications.

The framework is not yet open to allow participation from the developer community out there, and we will be working hard to make that happen over the next couple of weeks.

What applications can I use ?

Right now, three applications are available for use:

• New Post : Allows you to publish a new post on your timeline
• Profile View: Allows you to view the profile of the timeline owner
• Network View: Allows you to view the network of the timeline owner

These applications will be available in the next 2 weeks:

• Blog Importer: Turn you blog into a timeline instantly
• Photo Importer: Turn your picasa / flickr albums into a timeline instantly

How do I use it ?

To start, simply click the “Apps” link on the top navigation bar of the timeline you are viewing. That will show you a list of available applications for that timeline. Simply click on the application that you want to use and follow instructions.

If you have an application you would like to use, please mail us at contact[at]lifeblob.com and we will add it to our list. If you are an application developer and you would be interested in getting notified when we open our API, please mail us at dev[at]lifeblob.com .

This is possibly the most requested feature in the history of Lifeblob. And now ladies and gentlemen, hold your breath because we present to you the ability to edit your blobs.

To edit a blob, simply click the edit icon ( second from the top in the screenshot ) that shows up when you maximize a blob on your timeline.

If you add participants to the blob when you edit it, the new participants will notified of the post if they are already on Lifeblob or sent an invite if they are not on Lifeblob.

This month, we added a number of new features and improvements that LifeBlob users have asked for.

New Features

• The timeline looks gorgeous – we know your life is, why shouldn’t your timeline be.
• Timelines for places and tags are finally out.
  • Simply select a place and add tags when you make a post to have it show up on the respective place or tag timeline.
  • Use the navigation panel on the left of maximized post view to jump to a participant or tag or place timeline.

• A navigation panel at the top that:
  • Shows you the current timeline being viewed
  • Lets you jump back to any of the last 5 timelines you visited
  • Lets you Zoom In and Zoom Out of the timeline
  • Allows one click new post to your timeline

• In addition to using the navigation panel for zoom and dragging the timeline, you can also:
  • Roll your mouse wheel forward to zoom in
  • Roll your mouse wheel backward to zoom out
  • Double click on the timeline to zoom in
  • Right click on the timeline to zoom out
  • Hold down the “Alt” key and roll your mouse wheel forward to zoom in
  • Hold down the “Alt” key and roll your mouse wheel backward to zoom out
  • Double click on a post being shown on the timeline to maximize it

• Small triangles hover on top of the date bar to indicate where your hidden posts are. Zoom in to an appropriate level to view the post.

• A new improved sidebar that sits on top of the timeline. No more timeline resizes when you collapse it to get the full view.
• A significantly improved way to let you add new posts with ease:
  • Ability to upload multiple photos in one go
  • Typeahead completion of participant names
  • Search to select a place or simply drop the marker
• Adding a participant in a post invites them if they are already not registered members of Lifeblob.
  • Everyone has 10 invites to start with, so go ahead and invite your friends
  • You will be given more invites based on your usage and the usage of people you invite
• And finally, a real help page with answers to all the questions that we have been asked so far.
  • Use the support section to report any bugs you encounter during usage
  • Use the suggestions section to let us know any crazy ideas that you want implemented

Coming Soon

• Edit Blob – That is high on our minds and you will see it really soon.
• Applications – Wondering where they disappeared? We took them out to make them better and you will soon have them back ( including blog/picasa/flickr importer ).
• Profile – You have been asking for it and we will have it in the next release.

We would love to hear how much you like these and any other things you wish to see.