AOL: It's a SocialThing

As AOL struggles to evolve, and by struggle I mean pursuing a veriety of paths as are many media companies, their initiatives in LifeStreaming are pretty interesting. If you are an AIM user you may have read or tried their BuddyUpdate offerings, which allow users to track other people across a variety of social media platforms like Twitter.

Now they have purchased SocialThing, a product in private beta that promises to add a host of additional life streaming capabilities to the AOL operation. The Boulder CO operation is one of the ten companies in the TechStars incubator initiaitve, which provides dinero and counsel to ideas that hold a great deal of promise.

Here's a promo vid for TechStars.



It got me to thinking about my biggest pet peeve of social media -- that I do not have time to keep up with the goings on at a dozen different social communities, but I am driven to join them because each offers tailored functionality to foster a specific kind or set of kinds of interaction.

SocialThing appears to be similar to FriendFeed, though doubtless there are differences I don't understand. But check them out, and bravo to AOL for pursuing this direction which from my view appears to be a winner.