Xively was one of the services we used as inspiration for Phant / data.sparkfun.com. Before they were Xively they were Pachube and things were easier to work with and free. Then Xively gobbled up Pachube and things got all business-y. Thus Xively has been an example of how we didn't want to build it.
It makes me very happy to hear this. I've always been sad that the initial promise of Pachube being an open place to store and exchange data was subsumed by corporate overlords.
This is as close to the mindset of the original Pachube as I've seen in a long while.
Very nice and thanks! Writing a replacement for Xively/Cosm/Pachube was on my TODO list, but now I don't have to. I'll take this for a spin later, and hope to contribute if there is anything I have to offer.