One of the more interesting uses of data tracking and analysis is the ability to track personal behavior, visualize the results and explore personal trends over time. Some designers have even taken to publishing "annual reports" about their own actions during a year.
Designers 
Nicholas Felton and Ryan Case started website Daytum to allow users to track and visualize their personal actions. The personal dashboard system is a free service with numerous clean options for displaying information. For a $4/month fee, additional options, including privacy controls, are available.
Nicholas Felton and Ryan Case started website Daytum to allow users to track and visualize their personal actions. The personal dashboard system is a free service with numerous clean options for displaying information. For a $4/month fee, additional options, including privacy controls, are available.When my wife and I had our first child, we made great use of TrixieTracker, a subscription-based service to allow new parents to track the behaviors of their child in order to recognize patterns and, hopefully, make the whole process of early parenthood easier. One of the difficulties for data tracking services, we discovered, is the data entry process.
Even with things like Nike Plus and GPS devices, few people are wearing enough biometric or sensing hardware to automate the data collection process. As a result, the consumer is burdened with the task of entering what could be a huge amount of information. Many times, the activity to be recorded is happening far away from a computer connected to the internet, increasing the difficulties.
Today, Nathan Yau, editor of data visualization blog FlowingData, released your.flowingdata 2.0 (YFD) in an attempt to provide a personal tracking service with a reduced hassle of entering data. YFD allows people to use Twitter to easily record their actions and uses tools on the website for visualization. For people who use Twitter regularly, they often broadcast their activities frequently so the addition of a few tags in each post won't be too much more work for them. The service is currently free and is part of Yau's graduate school research.
I haven't been able to regularly use any of these since I stopped using Trixie Tracker, but now that I've started inline skating again, I'm tempted, but first I want to research exercise-specific tracking opportunities. As soon as I do, I'll write about it here.
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