It uses email which for me is essential.

Then I certainly wouldn’t recommend doing it.

That said, I currently use about 10-12 different services that are aggregated in different areas.

First, I have a lifestream blog at http://brian.carnell.com/life_stream/ which aggregates public info — facebook updates, tweets, netflix rentals, last.fm listening stream, my wish list, blog updates, comments i make on websites — stuff that is already public or semi-public already and I just want it aggregated in one spot where i can then datamine it.

Second, I use your.flowingdata to track and aggregate information that I don’t usually make public but usually wouldn’t be awful if it leaked. I wouldn’t feel comfortable posting my weight or diet to FB, but I like being able to track it there (so far it’s working — I’ve lost 6 pounds in the month or so I’ve been using it actively — nice feedback loop).

Finally, I have a private microblog hosted on a server I control that I update with ongoing information that is a bit more sensitive and/or other tools don’t adequately capture yet.

Overall, I’m probably making about 30 active updates daily with probably twice that in passive updates, depending on how active I am on a particular day.

I agree with Emily in that what I see a need for more of is flexibility. The ability to self-define categories and track that whether its gas mileage, my latest triglyceride count, or the number of pair of t-shirts i currently own.

Jess – I agree with your statement that we’re not there yet, “there” being defined as passive, continuous data collection, real-time data transmission and automated reporting and analytics.

What else is needed though? Don’t we have all the pieces of the puzzle but no one has put them together yet? Sensing technologies, bluetooth, cellular broadband, SMS, analytics algorithms, statistical methods, data visualization techniques – these are well established.

My question is – what fundamental element in the future state vision doesn’t already exist? All we have to do is put the pieces together, right?

But – how do we make it happen? If there really are no fundamental barriers, what is getting in the way?

My favorite tool for personal data collection is Tiddlywiki. Lightweight, extensible plugin architecture, cross platform compatible with any platform that has a web browser, cross reference tagging, embedding of things like Google Calendar and tasks (among many, many other things), etc. It may not kick back visualized data to me, but it does what a great personal wiki should do and it does it better and faster and easier and with less overheard than anything else out there.

Totally agree with the need to do more with less, in this case, more life-tracking that doesn’t require a million different logins across the internet. Clearly I’m biased towards zeaLOG, cus it is my baby, but that was one of the main goals we had in design…flexibility of purpose, so the user can decide what measurement is important to them, whether it is gas mileage, money, booze intake, weight, or what have you. That said, we are also firm believers that almost nothing works best in isolation, so social components, like group tracking is a big part of the site. It seems to work pretty well, at least for me.

On point with the commenters above, I’m kind of of two minds. I love the idea of more passively tracking, but then I run into the concern that the data I get won’t be meaningful in the end. For instance, if I track all the music that streams through my computer, I’m not actually listening to all that music, it’s just on…if that makes sense. On the other hand, if I rely upon a purposeful action to enter data, whether it is through an api, twitter, iphone or web, I’m already making a statement that the particular piece of data is important to me. That’s another tracking device right there.

I also like to look at data over time, so I’m getting more of a guage of “how I’m doing” vs. “how I’ve done”. I think there is a place for everyone, though, with all the choices becoming available.

In the end, for patient safety and wellness, the best tools will need to be ambient, automatic and mobile.

Of course, we are walking confidently into a brave new world of the Panopticon, in which an invisible omniscience is achieved.

The guy that has figured out how to track every aspect of his life is Prof. Hasan Elahi (http://elahi.sjsu.edu/) who has turned the daily, boring activities of eating, relieving oneself, shopping and going to bed a high art, inspired by his detention by the FBI after 9/11.

Same with Jonathan Harris, especially his Whale Hunt that captures not only heart rate and images, but mapped colors and emotion. http://thewhalehunt.org/whalehunt.html