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In a time when we all have content scattered everywhere on the web we all know how difficult it is to save all those usernames and passwords in one place. I remember creating accounts on many social sites, only to forget the passwords. Somehow it is always annoying to recover passwords, annoying to have to open a new browser tab to access another social service, annoying to have to submit bookmarks to 20 different sites that require the same information. Call me lazy if you want, but I honestly don’t like wasting my time.

When I heard of Second|Brain I was really excited. I had no idea that there are sites that aggregate content from various social sites like Digg, Flickr, Twitter, etc. into one place. OK, I always felt the need to see (and use) such a site, but I didn’t look for it on purpose.

Sia wrote about this startup not long ago and a few days after her article, Second|Brain announced the launch of beta 2.0 for the end of May, but most importantly, they announced a contest with extravagant rewards: first prize MacBook Air, second and third xbox 360 and iPod nano, etc. Smooth move I dare say. Second Brain is not only useful, but it also knows how to reward its users.

The idea of “social aggregation” made me curious. I like to keep up with the trends, so the normal question was: is Second Brain the only one or just one of the many?

One of the many would be too much to say, but one of the social aggregation/lifestreaming services available free of charge for the social media enthusiasts is the right definition. I was very confused at first, as Second Brain doesn’t call its type of service “social aggregation” but it defines itself as a “content library”. It was difficult to find other sites like SB, but at the end of the search I found at least two that can easily compete for the “top of the tops” with Second Brain: Profilactic and FriendFeed.

Profilactic is “kicking” and it’s also the most complete aggregation/lifestreaming service I found after a few hours of search. The name makes me think at medicine, but the design is bearable, although it lacks Second Brain’s elegance. It supports 177 social sites, it even has a Wordpress lifestreaming plugin, it offers a “clippings” feature that allows users to create a “personal scrapbook” and the list of professional pros could go on. I would certainly feel “lost” in my account, so I prefer something simpler…

FriendFeed has probably the ugliest UI possible, but it’s quite popular, probably because “ugliness sells” and because the interface is discoverable and easy to use. I like the “voting system” – it’s a nice catch, at least I know who likes what. This adds to FriendFeed a feature that is somehow missing from Second Brain: the social networking aspect.

All the three services above serve the purpose I started defining at the beginning of this article: they aggregate content from various social sites into one place, creating a “meta profile page.” This is quite complex (a psycho-analyst would have to say a lot about you after studying your “meta profile”) for those who like to keep a low profile on the Web, but active social media enthusiasts such as myself will certainly see the value of at least one account on a social aggregation site.