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June 7, 2007

MyLifeBrand Aggregates Social Networking Sites

Duncan Riley

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mylifebrand.jpgMyLifeBrand is a service that lets user’s aggregate social networking memberships and navigate between them from the one place.

MyLifeBrand supports Friendster, LinkedIn, Bebo, Facebook, H15, Orkut, MySpace, and TagWorld among others and is working on support for a number of niche social networks including Angling Masters, Navy Seals and Drunk Duck.

Users are also able to add their contacts from external networks to their MyLifeBrand friends list creating a master friends list.

The difficulty in managing multiple social networks is real and any heavy Web 2.0 site user will understand the problem. We covered Spokeo in November 06 and a number of similar services since.

MyLifeBrand gives social networking aggregation a decent shot, however presenting external sites in a frame doesn’t work for me (see screenshot).

The introduction of the Facebook’s F8 platform shows the real direction in this space. Facebook allows external sites and services to be integrated directly into Facebook and not through frames as with MyLifeBrand, delivering a far superior user experience. This is not to say that MyLifeBrand won’t be able to find a user base, it’s just that they are probably 12 months too late in releasing, and 6-12 months behind in delivery and integration to become a major player. The long tail is long and there is always room for new comers, so I do wish them luck; competing against Facebook will be a challenge.

mylifebrand1.jpg

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 1:11 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Bogdan

    June 7th, 2007 at 1:21 am

    The idea is good but not sure if it is original. I’m sure I saw other sites with similar features.

  2. Duncan Riley

    June 7th, 2007 at 1:39 am

    Bogdan, there is and TechCrunch has covered them, I just couldn’t remember the names aside from Spokeo :-)

  3. Brian Dixon

    June 7th, 2007 at 5:36 am

    Bogdan/Duncan,

    Please take the time to try out http://www.ProfileLinker.com covered several times by TC. Here’s a link to our coverage: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006.....etworking/

    I think its important to always keep the end user in mind when developing a social network aggregator. Giving users the ability to do link all profiles on one page is “neat” but it truly becomes valuable when your notifications and updates all come in at one place. This is one of the values of ProfileLinker.

    Being a heavy social network user myself I get frustrated by having to check 3-4 sites a day till the point where I just stop checking the 3rd and 4th. I think social network fatigue has hit already and will continue to be an issue. The concept of a social network aggregator should go beyond just html links to networks. A true aggregator should fetch my notes, friend updates, my contacts from all my networks, cross-network communication and other important updates.

    I think we’re all taking different approaches at the problem such as MyLifeBrand using frames or Spokeo(HypeIt) using a digg style setup or even Marc’s PeepAgg platform. At the end of the day I think the end user will go where they see the most functionality in management and our data shows that those benefits are the ones highlighted above.
    -Brian (Co-Founder)

  4. Startup Booster Blog

    June 7th, 2007 at 6:41 am

    You are right. It’s a bit late to join the games but hey when did FB started compared to previous social networking sites like Friendster. MLB just need some original idea to get that user base but it will be tough. Also frames was long gone for me.

  5. Michael Lacy

    June 7th, 2007 at 7:05 am

    What’s interesting is aggregating your content across social networking sites and surfing the aggregated tag clouds and content streams.

    http://neurokinetikz.com

  6. Useful Concept

    June 7th, 2007 at 7:19 am

    I don’t get why facebook gets so much love from you Duncan. The API is nice and handy, but so far nothing merits the predictions stated as equivocal fact.

  7. Useful Concept

    June 7th, 2007 at 7:20 am

    OH, that last post make me sound like a prick. I am curious not flame baiting. :-)

  8. Kewtr

    June 7th, 2007 at 8:03 am

    I think the problem may not be managing multiple social sites, and more that someone’s life is a brand. Good Lord.

  9. Lizi

    June 7th, 2007 at 9:14 am

    I think that their major problem (and similar sites) will be consolidation of social networks in the future

  10. Jarrod

    June 7th, 2007 at 9:53 am

    It doesn’t look like MyLifeBrand is competing with Facebook at all - they are adding that URL to their own platform like a bookmark - not competing with it. It looks like they are a community based social networking site that allows niche markets to be scaleable and reach other communities through one platform. I googled MyLifeBrand and found this indepth review http://www.appscout.com/2007/0.....orking.php .

  11. danny

    June 7th, 2007 at 10:00 am

    Thanks for the coverage, just want to clarify, we are NOT a social networking nor competing with Facebook, but rather a social platform which wishes to enable access and aggregation of social networks in one place.

    The issue is more relevant today as when we started. There are more niche networks than there are people in China (OK well not that many) and very few on their own can scale. Also people belong to more networks and participate with more services than ever.

    We believe we are gracefully helping address those problems. The mission is to bring communities, friends and services together in one place and in our view timely rather than late given the proliferation of these.

    Cheers and keep up the good coverage!

  12. Eduardo Sciammarella

    June 7th, 2007 at 10:02 am

    I think the intention behind this kind of service is spot on. Fundamentally it’s not so much about service aggregation but about people aggregation. Our friends and contacts are all over the place sharing all kinds of interesting things. What I want is a way to bring them together and keep in contact across social networks and platforms- Web, PC, and mobile.

  13. sue

    June 7th, 2007 at 10:39 am

    Are you on Facebook’s payroll?

    What Facebook did is nothing more than enable widget companies to develop for their platform - hardly revolutionary in 3.0 world trying to break out the 2.0 hangover.

  14. josh carrier

    June 7th, 2007 at 12:13 pm

    Another http://www.emokoo.com copy!!

  15. landmammal

    June 7th, 2007 at 12:27 pm

    Yawn! Where is killerapp?

  16. Paul Bradish

    June 7th, 2007 at 12:58 pm

    Facebook deserves its due. Excellent article Duncan.

  17. KR

    June 7th, 2007 at 1:03 pm

    Aggregating different social networks is an idea that needs an elegant solution.

    An aggregation site should have both a tab and widget view. centralized and import/export of contacts from one network to another. one global mailbox. one global chat. ability to drag and drop content/widgets.

    i am assuming this is in the works somewhere, and once it has enough of these features, i’ll gladly use it.

  18. :: r y a n ::

    June 7th, 2007 at 1:05 pm

    Give me an RSS feed of what’s happening on my networks. Then I can avoid painful user interface designs and pointless fluff when all I want to know is what my friends are doing. Do I really need some chunky site to do that? Newp.

    The person that gets me the content out of the mess of social networking sites without making me go to *another* site gets the cookie or a lap dance at the Gold Club in SF. Otherwise I will keep a few tabs open in FF like I already do…

  19. Bill Hartzer

    June 7th, 2007 at 1:27 pm

    I agree–there definitely is going to be a market for this type of service–especially with so many social networking sites out there, and groups of people going from one to the other to the other from time to time.

    Ryan’s idea of the RSS feed is great–I’d rather follow everything in RSS rather than through a “service”. Some sites are beginning to offer RSS, such as twitter–which works well for me.

  20. matthew

    June 7th, 2007 at 2:41 pm

    been done before without much success.

  21. Alan

    June 7th, 2007 at 6:31 pm

    I don’t see this as a competitor to FB but as a extension of it as well as other sites. I was able to message friends and colleagues from Linkedin, facebook and myspace all through this service. MyLifeBrand although still in Alpha seems to be on the right track. What I found unique was the ability to easily navigate through as well as set up a “community” in seconds. Search functions worked well, straightforward to post and upload video and pictures. I emailed about MyLifeTV and it is due to launch by the end of the month which will create a much needed media component for the site. For an Alpha company they seem to be on the right track. I don’t think it is too late for them at all and maybe they will set the bar for sites to come. Off to a good start I say

  22. Eric Marcoullier

    June 8th, 2007 at 12:41 am

    Can somebody on the site do me a petite solid and drop me a bit of sponsorship? Inquiring minds and all. Email me at eric at mybloglog dot com if you can help a guy.

  23. Adam

    June 10th, 2007 at 2:00 am

    I’ve tried MyLifeBrand - but for me the only social networks aggregator is 8hands. i think it’s much easier to control everything from a desktop application and not from a web-page cause if it’s in your tray, you’ll get every notification immediately. beside that, i don’t want to replace my myspace or flickr - i just want to controll them, and stay connected to them all the time…

    i recommend it, check it out @ http://www.8hands.com

  24. Tricia

    June 16th, 2007 at 11:13 am

    I stopped using facebook and friendster, because it sucked trying to log into each of them all the time! But with this… I think I will be using all my accounts again since I can use all of them from one space. I think Myspace, Friendster, and all the other social networking sites should be investing in this one. Bleeding edge.

  25. ggocimdatq

    June 19th, 2007 at 9:50 am

    Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! ozcxsmgbwfg

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