Traackr Turns Up

The story so far: I set up an account on Traackr, then became inclined not to use the service, because it didn’t seem to have taken any notice of the stuff I’d told it about.

Then, yesterday, I got an automated email from Traackr telling me that it had made my “asset data” available. More important, I got a personal email from Pierre-Loïc of Traackr, explaining the delay, while accepting responsibility for it. The tone of the email was very friendly, especially considering that I had reported the problem on my (public) blog, and not through Traackr’s support channels.

So, I’m back on Traackr!

Trying to Be a Traackr, But…

Traackr sounded cool to me. That was based on the assumption that it would actually track things. But it doesn’t track some of the web services I use.

It claims to track Flickr, but a couple of days after I told it about my Flickr account, it still claims that I have no content. Maybe it saw images (and potential profile photos) like this one, and got scared off. I’m not sure I blame it, but I think that I am now scared off Traackr, and inclined to look at some of its 30+ competitors.

Lifestreaming With FriendFeed and Traackr

Earlier today at ReadWriteWeb, Josh identified 35 services offering a way to aggregate all the little bits of your online life. Exactly three hours later, at the same site, Sarah identified yet another.

Traackr doesn’t just aggregate the bits, it measures them. You tell it about your “assets,” as it calls the stuff you have at various sites. It then lets you measure your influence and interact with other content producers just like you.

So, although Traackr is lifestreaming service number 36 (or 66, or however many it is how), it has a distinctive position among such services. Its emphasis is on the work currents in your lifestream and on measuring the strength of those currents.

Traackr allows you to group assets into “campaigns.” So my Mug Project Campaign might include a photo on Flickr and a post on this blog. Actually, it’s currently an empty campaign, since Traackr can take up to 24 hours to collect asset data. Also, there’s no way of telling Traackr about content at WordPress.com; I hope that this will change soon.

I’ll link to my Traackr profile, in the hope that by the time you see it, I’ll have a score above zero for view, buzz, and popularity. I’ll also link to my FriendFeed, since, according to Josh, “FriendFeed might hold the crown for most talked about lifestreaming app. It supports nearly 30 web sites.”

To conclude with a rather web-weary comment: it’s strange that, while these lifestreaming services aim to cut across silos/site, each is itself a silo. I signed up for FriendFeed and for Traackr today, and I had to identify my sites to each.