It has been unofficial lifestreaming month here on andydesoto.com, and although we’ve talked about Swurl, Sweetcron, Friendfeed, and other lifestreamers and aggregators, there’s been one microblog platform quietly chugging along that I didn’t even know existed: soup.io.
If you’ve known about this service for quite some time now, feel free to move along; released in the last quarter of 2007, it’s hardly new, especially in the rapid-fire world of Web 2.0 startups. But if you’ve never heard of it like I hadn’t, read along: soup.io just might be what you’re looking for.
Soup.io: Tumblr or Swurl with a different flavor
I became aware of soup.io thanks to an offhanded mention in a Read/Write Web article earlier today, and I must say that I’m awfully impressed with the service so far. It seems as though every new lifestreaming service I discover is more and more credentialed to serve the niche. Much like these two other services, the concept of soup.io is simple: it aggregates onto one attractive-looking page your activity on any of the following sites:
- Delicious
- Digg
- Flickr
- Last.fm
- Plurk
- StumbleUpon
- Tumblr
- Vimeo
- YouTube
- RSS Feeds
- and more!
The result? A clean, simple, easy-to-read page perfect for personal blogging or aggregation. Add in the ability to manually clip items from the web or enter text, audio, and video and you’ve got all you need for a no-hassle personal site.
Take a look at the service in action here. Not too bad, hmm?
Why soup.io over the alternatives?
If you’re a dedicated Tumblr or Swurl user or even prefer a more full-featured blogging platform, here’s why you might want to consider using Soup instead:
- It looks better than Swurl.
- It supports CNAME entries so you can set it up on a personal domain or subdomain.1
- It’s less complicated than Tumblr and offers more import options.
- As Richard MacManus says, it has “Ajax-y goodness.”
I plan on using mine for a personal lifestream of sorts, at least until we see what Sweetcron is all about in less than ten days.
So there you are: if you were behind the times on soup.io like I was, you now know about a new service that’s definitely worth checking out. If you have an account over there or are planning on starting one up, comment with the address! I’d love to check it out.
Which do you prefer? Tumblr, Swurl, soup.io, or some other service?
- Swurl and Tumblr do this too, but it’s worth mentioning, especially if you dislike the .io top-level domain like I do. [↩]
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