55 million blogs and growing. That is the number I have run into in a website that I didn’t recall the name. All these people in quest for making money? I don’t think so. Most of them should be just like me; have a personal affinity to keep track of what you think at a moment in life, and to review that thought in a random moment in future. The following quote of mine might seem too conclusive, but the whole reason behind taking photographs, recording videos, keeping diaries, cards and various memorative sutff are just ways to create the authentic impulse that will shift us back into time and relive the moment.

Building on that, lately I started feeling short of a niche web service. A social milestone-sharing, with a very lean user interface that gives user several drop-down menus to choose from and one or two image/video uploads per entry. Here are few samples: Bought my first car in 2001, had the first salary raise in 2004, ever-first bruise in ski in 2005… Now enrich these entries with a few images, and comments from your friends (“you earned it” from your manager or “I admit it, in fact I was the one who bumped the right fender in the car park” from your wife).

Now, the reasons (i) to want this service (ii) this service has to be different than blogs, flickr or myspace.

Why this service

  • Yeah why? You can well keep them in your hardcase diary, or back-up DVDs with some .doc comments right? Then, how will you organise them in a chronological way, easily carry them to your belongings and have some invaluable comments from the ones you share those moments?
  • Think about what you already have as memoirs. The ticket of 2002 UEFA Champions League Final, hard-copy of your wedding photos taken 20 years ago, 8mm tape of your child’s first day of walking and your first chat transcript of your then-spouse cyber-girlfriend (Ok, I admit it, the latter is a bit exaggerated!). How possibly can you integrate them into one single platform, so that you will seamlessly travel in time?

Why not use an existing service like MySpace, Blog or Flickr?

  • Let’s first take out blogs. I can evidently manage a blog, and Blogspot makes it managable for starters. But there is still a need to timestamp everything, categorize them and you will still see the entries in a vertically-infinite column of some sort, with negligible comment effect.
  • MySpace. It already has more things than it should effectively handle. Whatever you add more, it will seem like nothing changed.
  • Flickr, good for photos. Good for sharing. Good for geotagging. Bad for integrating photos, videos and comments altogether in a chronologically-organized entry formula.

I name this service as a means of “Personal Milestones”. Who knows? Some wise Palo Alto guys might open the site and attribute the inspiration to me. And I will be among the early-adopters to use and promote it…