Lifestreams

Conventional software systems, such as those based on the “desktop metaphor,” are ill-equipped to manage the electronic information and events of the typical computer user. We introduce a new metaphor, Lifestreams, for dynamically organizing a user's personal workspace. Lifestreams uses a simple organizational metaphor, a time-ordered stream of documents, as an underlying storage system. Stream filters are used to organize, monitor and summarize information for the user. Combined, they provide a system that subsumes many separate desktop applications. This paper describes the Lifestreams model and our prototype system.