Life as RSS
A little while ago I began to realize just how much of my personal information is digitally created every day. This is both scary and enticing (to me). Scary, due to the fact that people can harness this information for evil/marketing. Enticing because I should be able to (theoretically) harness this information to provide a better user experience for the people who care (me and my friends, I assume). So, the other day I sat down and tried to figure out every accessible data medium that I generate and have access to. Now, with one stipulation: It has to be at least somewhat time-based and, therefore, intuitive to convert into an RSS feed.
Media
| Item | Source | RSS |
|---|---|---|
| Music that I've Listened To | Audioscrobbler | Done |
| TV That I Watch | Tivo | Done |
| Books/Movies/CDs I Own | Delicious Library | None Yet |
| Movies I Watch | Netflix | Done |
| Pictures I Take | Flickr | Done |
WWW
| Item | Source | RSS |
|---|---|---|
| Web Pages that I've Visited | Safari History | None Yet |
| Google Searches | Google Search History | Done |
| Posts to my Weblog | Wordpress | Done |
| Links That I Find Interesting | Delicious | Done |
Personal
| Item | Source | RSS |
|---|---|---|
| Programming Activity | CVS/SVN Commits | Done |
| AIM Chats | Adium Chat Logs | None Yet |
| Phone Conversations and SMS | Virgin Mobile | None Yet |
| Bank Transactions | HSBC Online | None Yet |
| Gmail | Done |
My masterplan: Essentially, an RSS aggregator (makes sense, nothing special) that pulls all of my personal RSS feeds into one place and provides an overall statistical view of the information that it contains. I may even provide some detailed information, save for things in the 'Personal' category. What I like about this is the fact that most of this information is completely public (or is possible to make completely public) - they're all using common/widely available programs or tools. So, stage one: Set up a personal life browser - stage two: Open it up for the world to play with. More info soon.
Tags: information, data, aggregation, aggregator, rss, personal
