Are you overwhelmed by the many social networks you and your online friends
are part of? Wish there was a way to see everything at once? Looking for a
better way to find useful, relevant information? Try a lifestream.

Your lifestream is a collection of your online activity into one place. It
can aggregate your content from social networks and it can be used as a
microblogging tool. Many lifestreams can be customized, filtered and searched,
and a lifestream can be displayed on a web page or as an RSS feed.

How can you use a lifestream? Some people use it as a "microblog" to collect
bookmarks and post small snippets of info. This type of lifestream might consist
of information that doesn’t warrant a full blog post, or be used by those who
don’t want the upkeep of a full blog. Check out Tumblr as an example.

Another popular use of the lifestream is to collect all your online activity
into one central location. Simply check the social networking sites you participate
in (such as Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us) and the lifestream
service will pull in your content. The number of social sites supported varies
- with Profilactic as the current king with 144 services supported – but most allow you to enter any RSS feed you want to include. Once you’ve set up all the
information you want aggregated, the lifestream will display all your activity
in a timeline sort of way.

Once you’ve created a lifestream, you’ll want to share it! While each
service offers you your own lifestream web page, most also have a widget you
could add to your blog that will display your lifestream. Sharing your online
activity adds value to your blog. People reading you are most likely interested
in the topics you are interested in. Find good content and share it through
your lifestream, and people will visit your blog even more often. And of
course, you’ll want to follow the lifestreams of your favorite web users.

ReadWriteWeb has a great Lifestreaming Primer here. You can also check out the Lifestream Blog. And don’t forget to visit the Blissfully Domestic forum to ask questions and discuss lifestreaming.