Disclaimer: I’m fully aware that this blog post is flying directly in the face of one of my other recent posts titled “Information Overload.”

I recently discovered Memolane. Still in beta mode, the app is a great idea, although I’m still trying to figure out exactly how I might use it. Basically, it allows you to add from a list of about 15 social media sites to aggregate all of your activity from those sites into a “lane” or a timeline. This timeline is what other users will see when they visit your homepage, and Memolane is nice in that it allows you to control what access you give to each of these social media apps.

I guess, for my money, the coolest feature is that in one place I can go back in time, currently as far back as the summer of 2006, and see all of my social media activity from then. Not that I have a desire to relive the past, but sometimes it can be interesting to go back and remember things that I’d completely forgotten. Now, what would be REALLY cool is if there were an option to link to Rdio and see what I was listening to a year ago.

Posted by Brian Chenault, software developer at Business Bullpen. You can follow Brian on Tumblr.

Every now and then I plan to write about some of the tools and apps we use at Business Bullpen to be more productive and efficient. Today I am going to focus on our latest company love affair … with rdio.

I stumbled upon rdio, the subscription streaming music service, several months ago, and decided to give it a try. I am always searching for new music and listening on iTunes, Pandora, and Tumblr. It was becoming harder for me to keep up my collection of digital music as I discovered new tunes and albums through blogs and free streaming services. I could no longer keep up with downloading music. Now, the recent Apple announcement about iCloud might make things a bit easier, but it still requires me to keep up a collection of music that I own.

Since our culture is so accustomed to getting music for free (legally or illegally) these days, paying $9.99 per month for a subscription service is a significant barrier for some people. Luckily rdio gives a free trial for seven days. If you spend any time on rdio during those first seven days, you will be hooked. The rdio music library is impressive. In addition to the web, it can also be accessed on the iPhone or Droid. The thing that triggered my love affair with rdio, though, is how easy it is to discover new music. There is a separate section/page on the rdio Mac app and website just for new releases. Every Tuesday there is a plethora of brand new tunes to peruse. You can also discover new music from the people you follow on rdio. You have a timeline just like you do on other social media apps that tells you who did what when. In addition, rdio lets you know the top artists that everyone or those people in your network are listening to.

Everyone in our office is a passionate music fan, and a couple of the guys play music. Music is a part of our company culture. Thus, I’ve always wanted to provide some sort of music perk for our employees. Last December, we bought tickets to the Jeff Tweedy show for the company holiday party. That was nice, but we were going to do something nice for the holiday party regardless. So after a couple of months of using rdio, I convinced my partner to offer rdio as a perk for our employees. We would pay for an employee’s subscription as long as they were using it. Judging by the number of times I’ve seen our team playing air guitar or air drums, I think we made the right move.

Todd Wickersty is the Founder of Business Bullpen. You can follow Todd on Tumblr or Twitter.