With web 2.0, the internet has become interactive. Beyond just consuming information, we now like, love, share, tweet, recommend and +1 any content we find worth it. In doing so, each one of us produces lots of new information. The more our lives are supported by apps, software tools and social networks, the more we might take the information we produce while using them as a representation of what we do and who we are. Memolane and Patchlife both came up with services that aim to make this data more valuable for us.

Memolane comes with a beautiful timeline

Memolane imports information from various web 2.0 services and gathers it into one horizontal timeline. This creates a good overview of your past activities and is particularly nice to look at on a large screen. All you have to do is connect your accounts from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Youtube or Instagram to your Memolane profile. You can then navigate through time and view all your past status updates, tweets, check-ins and so on in your personal memory lane.

For every web profile connected to your Memolane account, you can decide whether you want to keep the information private, share it with Memolane friends or make it open for public access. Another feature is the ability create stories from your digital past by selecting status updates, checkins or any other memory from your online life. This can also be done along with your Memolane friends. What I really like is that the web application is 100% iPad compatible.

Patchlife is the online journal that gathers your digital memories

In contrast, Patchlife shows information in a stream similar to what we’re you used to on Facebook and many other services. It’s designed so that you can jump directly from a monthly calendar view to daily information about your past activities.

This service, which is totally private, can be used as a journal by creating personal remarks or uploading pictures, which makes it a bit like the popular iPhone app Momento. Unlike Memolane, Patchlife comes with an iPhone app that allows accessing your data and entering text on the go, while the website is fully iPad compatible.

Hot or not?

Memolane and Patchlife are currently running in beta modus and can each be used free of charge. Both of them offer a unique overview of your digital history and should be particularly interesting for those who want to remember what they deemed important to post, share, tweet or check-in in the past. While the types of profiles that can be added to each application differ slightly, both Memolane and Patchlife cover the most important ones, including Facebook pages and multiple Twitter accounts. Memolane comes with a visually beautiful approach and sharing features for your digital memories. Patchlife sets its focus on privacy and lets you use it as your personal journal.

If you wonder wether Memolane and Patchlife will offer benefits over Facebook’s soon to be rolled out Timeline, I can assure you that they are. I’ve been testing the developer release of Facebook’s update to the profile page for quite some time now. From what I’ve seen so far, the timeline will only show events from other services that you’ve been posting to your stream. In contrast, Memolane and Patchlife import everything, even you’ve decided not to share on Facebook. That makes the two services attractive for everyone who is using a lot of different social networks independently.

When it comes to web activities, there are more than social networks. Tracking and analyzing your web surfing history is another big field of your digital life that can be covered with two new dedicated services. Watch out for a review on egoArchive and Voyurl coming up soon.