Memiary: Save Your Life From the Oblivion of Forgetfulness
I don't remember what I did last Monday, do you? I'd have to think pretty hard to remember what I did even on my last birthday, and that was only two weeks ago. That's depressing.
Enter Memiary, a startlingly simple diary service that prompts you to enter up to five sentence fragments about what you did today and lets you look back by date at what you did in the past. It's really simple, from the gracefully implemented account creation process to the AJAX item editing. I've bookmarked it and am going to try to fill it out daily for awhile; I'd sure like to be able to look back at any given day in my life and remember what happened. This is so simple I might actually use it.
Memiary is a weekend creation from Sid Yadav, long-time app reviewer at the blog Rev2.org. Yadav wrote a good post about the process of creating the service, how fulfilling it was and how proud his first user (mom) was of him.
These kinds of projects can go well, or not. We wrote about the relaunch of Diary.com last month, where private diaries are now combined with "lifestream" aggregation of activity from around the web. That site claims 11k diaries have been created, a number lower than what you'd think they could have managed with that URL and no effort at all.
Twitter's not made for this kind of thing, either. That company gives and takes away access to users' own archives as it suits their scaling needs and people tend to send more messages in a day than is appropriate as a personal history.
Even more simple could be the way to go. That's what I'd like, I realize now, after checking out Memiary. Hopefully Memiary's Yadav will implement a simple XML data-export option so I don't have to resent the control he holds over my life, trapped in his website. I'd also like to be able to enter more characters per line than is currently allowed. Simple is good but so are complete sentences. I would also like a reminder to make my entries - for me that would work well as an IM at 5:00 PM.
Little services like this might not turn the world upside down, they might not take markets by storm or get acquired for tens of millions of dollars - but they can make a difference in the lives of the people who use them. Isn't that really why most of us are here on the internet, anyway?
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This reminds me of a little detail I adore about the Hermux Tantamoq novels - http://www.hermux.com/. Each day that passes, Hermux assembles a list of things to be thankful for and writes them in his diary. It's un-diaryish in a way that still establishes the high and low points of a given day.
I will be interested to see how you react to the experiment. I may try to journal my NaNoWriMo progress via the service.
PS - I'm unfollowing you know, just to fake out your Qwitter metrics...or AM I?
Posted by: J-P Voilleque | October 27, 2008 11:48 AM
I wrote a post today ("Don’t wait any longer: End procrastination now!" http://cli.gs/EJdaDz) about procrastination and how to use a similar tool like Memiary to help you fighting it. I do believe these little tools can help out a lot.
Posted by: Jorge Escobar | October 27, 2008 11:52 AM
@CPritchett used to blog this way on her (private) LJ. Each post listed five things she'd sensed that day, one for each sense. Stuff like "smelled - pumpkin pie. tasted - our first thanksgiving turkey in our new home. heard - my in-laws playing with our infant daughter. saw - daughter smiling at the dog. touched - crinkly leaves in the front yard."
Posted by: Daniel J. Pritchett
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October 27, 2008 11:55 AM
A little while ago I had the same realization, but then I also realized that looking back over my old Twitter messages gave me the same insight into what I'd done. The interface Memiary offers, however, is very compelling to use for this specific situation..
Posted by: Peter Cooper | October 27, 2008 1:16 PM
After having created a reverse todo list (things already accomplished or experienced) on Memiary's simple yet eloquent interface, here are some thoughts:
Like Twitter was at its launch, this is a cool idea that can rely on its user base to determine where it could eventually go.
Accounting? Emotional processing/storage? Could entries eventually be searchable? Shared? How could it be monetized in a tasteful manner? How could an iPhone app add to the experience?
Posted by: Chris Foley | October 27, 2008 5:09 PM
Wow, dumbest idea ever. If you're so lazy to not write out some paragraphs about your journal, how dull and boring will your "life story" be when you have this mess as your life.
Posted by: michael lamb | October 27, 2008 6:03 PM
@Michael Lamb:
The idea is that some people (like me) are so busy living their lives, they don't have a quick + easy + convenient way to remember it and preserve those memories. I hate writing, but I love living. So with Memiary, the 5 lines per day give me something to preserve while allowing me to spend the rest of the time doing what I do best: living.
@Chris Foley
Some great feedback! A couple I can address: iPhone app is being worked on and a 'search' function will be soon to follow.
@Others
Thanks for all your kind words!
Posted by: Sid Yadav | October 27, 2008 7:00 PM
Tried it. Liked it. But got the feeling it's something I'll use for the next 3 days then forget about. I think for it to be really useful, it would need to sit on my desktop and occasionally nag me about I'm doing.
Posted by: Richard | October 28, 2008 3:21 AM
I'm going to try it for my running journal. Normally I track my daily mileage and route on my desktop calender. I'll see how it goes!
Posted by: Natasha Baker | October 28, 2008 10:40 AM
hey how are you doing today?
Posted by: melinda | October 28, 2008 11:18 AM
Sweetness. Two thumbs up.
Posted by: Brandon S | October 29, 2008 4:09 PM
Online Diary... not a bad idea!
Posted by: design | November 12, 2008 8:12 PM