Just how many cups of coffee do you drink a day on average? How does your weight fluctuate over time? How much sleep do you normally get?
A new type of web service has emerged that allows you to keep track of such personal statistics. Two services, Daytum and ZeaLOG stand out as the two big players in this arena. What follows is a comparison/review of their features and functionality.
Please note that both services are in beta though you will receive an invite fairly quickly if you request an invitation.
First, a brief intro to each service:
DAYTUM: Daytum has two basic sections. A “display” section (default) and a “data set” section. In “display” you can show graphs and charts of different data sets, called “counters,” as well as put messages to yourself called “statements.” You are limited to 6 displays. In the data set section you are limited to six counters. To create a counter you give it a name and add “items.” For instance, if you were counting the color of cars you saw, you would name it “Car colors” and the items would be “Red,” “Blue,” “Silver,” etc. When a red car went past, you would add an entry to Red. Very simple. It does what it is supposed to without giving you distracting options.
ZeaLOG: Taking a more flexible approach, ZeaLOG allows you to create “ZeaLOGs” (the Daytum equivalent of a data set) with the options of checkmarks (ex: cleaned kitchen), one chunk at a time (ex: cups of coffee), and current value (ex: my weight).
The comparison…
Ease of use: Both are drop dead simple but Daytum gets the win in this category by virtue of having fewer options. With Daytum, you decide what you are going to track, add the items you are tracking, and that’s basically it. However, its simplicity does come at the price of missing features. For instance, all the data you put on your “display” page is public – there is no option to have certain displays be private. This is unfortunate because there are some data sets I would like to see graphed but simply don’t want the world to be able to access.
Overall aesthetics: Daytum wins this category. It has the clean-cut, refined feel of an application whose creation was influenced at every turn by a team with a keen attention to detail. In other words, I think “look and feel” was given equal (if not higher) priority than function (and that will be a recurring theme throughout this review).
Mobile updating: Being able to update your data while “out and about” is vital to the usefulness of these apps. Updates get a timestamp and this yields a lot of useful data in itself if you are able to do updates in realtime as opposed to the next time you are at a computer. Given this, it’s surprising that both applications are lacking in this area. For the time being, both allow updates via Twitter. I’m beginning to feel as though I’m the only person who doesn’t “get” Twitter. Both apps are in need of an iPhone app or, at least, a mobile version of their site. UPDATE: Zealog has an iPhone version of their site: http://iphone.zealog.com.
Collaboration: Zealog wins here (Daytum has no collaboration feature). It is easy to get started (create accounts and then send invites for specific “ZeaLOGS.”) and works as you would expect.
Reporting: Daytum opts, again, for clean, classy simplicity over functionality here. For instance, it does not include numbers on the axis of it’s charts. Helps with looks, doesn’t help with comprehending the data. Daytum gets bonus points for use of spark bars. Zealog gives you email updates. This is only necessary when collaborating so it makes sense that Daytum omits this.
Features in development (?): Daytum may be adding the ability to log your location at the time of a data update.
The winner: I prefer Daytum over ZeaLOG. However, in situations where more robust reporting and/or collaboration are necessary, ZeaLOG wins by default. The reason I started looking into these tracking apps was that we needed a way to keep track of repeating events at work. I’ve got our team using ZeaLOG and so far it’s working great and everyone is happy with it. However, I will be keeping track of my personal life in Daytum simply because its elegance feels “right” to me.
They are both free and both excellent in their own way so it will be worth your while to test both out.
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Thanks for the positive review of our site. I should add that m.daytum.com is the mobile version of our site. It is optimized for the iphone and is compatible with Android devices. We will be updating the site in a few short weeks with new features that allow you to have overlapping data sets and finer controls over the displays. – Cheers, Nicholas
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