Slifeshare and my startup idea

(hat tip: Tony Hirst) Rev2 reviews this web 2.0 service, Slifeshare, saying

"Do you really want to know what your friends are doing online right now? Do you fancy a bit of online friend espionage? What article they are reading in the New York Times online or what iTunes track they are listening to in real-time? If so, Slifeshare is the new social network for you."

The idea is that you remove the need to actually contact friends or post things about yourself, you simply track each others activities. So I can see what videos, blogs, music you access. Here's the pitch

"Slifeshare is an activity network for you and your friends where you share your live computer activities, such as videos you watch, music you listen to, web pages you find interesting and much more as a way to stay in touch"

I can see the power in connecting as a byproduct of what you do, but it's a step too far, can you imagine your friends tracking what you're doing all the time? 'Martin you've been looking at that Spurs discussion list for two hours now.' 'Martin, I noticed you only opened that file I sent you for twenty seconds, so don't pretend you've read it.'

That aside, what I need is a meta web 2.0 service, one which finds the web 2.o services I need because I can't keep up with them all. I can't even be bothered to work out which fine niche each service is targeting, and whether that is in fact a service I need. Each web 2.0 startup is so specific that matching it on to your daily life and determining whether it could help, or what the potential might be if you modified your behaviour is a costly overhead. So there's my idea for a startup - one that knows my routine, needs, interests and gathers a set of 2.0 services together for me and then makes recommendations, suggesting how each new one could help. 'We do 2.0 so you don't have to' is the tag line.

Someone will tell me such a thing exists now won't they?

[Update: In the interest of fairness - the slifeshare people contacted me and say that it "doesn't actually expose how much time you spend on web sites or emails. If you want to share a site, you need to do so explicitly. People can see the aggregate of sites you visit on a day, but not the amount of time you spend on these sites. Also, emails are not part of Slifeshare at all. "

So my examples were a bit off the wall. Maybe though, in order to be useful that's the type of data it does need, but that's a different question]

Comments

[Tony Hirst]

http://www.youlicit.com/ maybe? Dunno - not had chance to look at it properly?
(via http://www.rev2.org/2007/10/04/youlicit-%e2%80%93-find-relevant-sites-better/ )

[Edison Thomaz]

HI - I just wanted to clarify that Slifeshare doesn't actually expose how much time you spend on web sites or emails.

If you want to share a site, you need to do so explicitly. People can see the aggregate of sites you visit on a day, but not the amount of time you spend on these sites.

Also, emails are not part of Slifeshare at all.

Feel free to ping us anytime with comments and suggestions,

All the best,

Edison Thomaz
Slife Labs

[Lynne]

My comment was getting too long, so I've blogged it.
http://bluefluff2point0.blogspot.com/2007/10/this-one-doesnt-exist-yet.html

[Ray]

Not quite the same thing Martin but NetAccountability launched a service in the autumn of 2002 under which people can sign up to have a morally upstanding friend or family member monitor their web surfing habits. The monitor receives regular comprehensive reports of the websites that person visits. The thinking is that if people are aware they're being watched they will think twice about visiting inappropriate sites.