Mugshot: Streamlining Your Web Identity
September 23rd, 2007For months, I had been searching for an adequate solution to my social networking disconnect. In the last couple of days, I believe that I have discovered a solution to this problem. I received an invite to a new service called Mugshot, which aims at rectifying Web 2.0 detachment. It does so by providing a streamlined system for numerous social sites.
Some Features
On its most basic level, Mugshot could be described as way to keep all of your web activities filed. Once you configure your Mugshot profile, the app retrieves the feeds of information attached to the aforementioned services. Currently the list of trackable feeds include, but are not limited to: Digg, Reddit, Flickr, Facebook, Amazon, Google Reader, del.icio.us, Twitter, and Netflix. Lead by some of the guys from a popular Linux build named Red Hat, it is an open source, and community driven project.
Even when you don’t have a web browser open, you can continue perusing your friends with the desktop client, which has faint resemblances to the Pownce and Digg desktop clients. If you want to show off your web savvyness, they have a Mugshot badge maker that you can place in your sidebar.
My Thoughts
At first look, Mugshot appears to be a unsubstantial tool. However, upon using it even more, I have discovered the joys of staying connected. Unifying multiple sites onto one page makes my web browsing more efficient.
Some features that I would love to see added are possible filtering for services because some services can engulf the entries of others. The unconventional integration of Amazon is an interesting function as well.
A well-designed, and effective feed tracker is a necessary tool in the arsenal of any social bookmarker. On the other hand, users need to establish a balance between the services that they use and want to stay connected to, and the services that they need to stay connected. This is an unfortunately necessity, however Mugshot fills this empty niche. At least for me.
- Do you know of any similar services?
- Would you try Mugshot based on this article? If you do decide to, leave me your experience in the comments.
Hey,
I just signed up, it seems pretty useful. The sign-up was very simple, which seems to be one of those “new” things. (digg, Twitter, and Pownce all had simple sign-ups.) I’m hoping it will be really useful, but I wish the desktop client had OS X support.
i signed up for mugshot at the end of march. and with the exception of hitting it once or twice to remind myself that it was there, that’s all i’ve used it.
i do like the inclusion of netflix (especially since it updates itself).
other aggregators (i think that’s what you’re looking for in the “Do you know of any similar services?” question, right?) that i’ve found are:
Profilebuilder
Mashable
Mybloglog
Tumblr
As people keep joining more and more sites, I think these aggregators have value. Then again, I think there’s going to be some consolidating among the social networking sites, so the aggregators might lose a bit of that value in time.
I also prefer using Multiply, and since Multiply aggregates all in-site material already, I don’t really have a need for an aggregator. *shrug*
Hey, so I just read a cool post on PaulStamatiou.com about a similar new feature called FriendFeed. It seems to do the same thing for your friends as Mugshot does for yourself. Made by a group of ex-Google employees, it looks pretty interesting. I just applied to be a beta tester.