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20 November 2008

Personal timelines as social networks?

If you know me, you know i have been trying to find an online interactive personal timeline for a while now. Gina Trapani of Lifehacker.com couldn't say it any better:

"I have a terrible memory, especially when it comes to when things happened. Significant life events - like graduating and 9/11 - are all landmarks that help me remember when events occurred relative to them (i.e., "that was before I moved to California.") But there are still long periods of my past that are just a big amorphous blur - especially before I started using a computer every day.

"As a result, I've always been fascinated with digital timelines as a memory aid and reference: the ones that occur as artifacts of other activities (like our sent email folder and digital photo collection), and the ones we can purposefully construct for historical documentation."


She goes on to tout the merits of a widget called TIMELINE which as morphed into something i don't quite understand, and worse, i do not think i want to use. There are others, such as DANDELIFE, FREE TIMELINE, and ALL OF ME. There is also OUR STORY, and the lamely named TIME RIME and DIPITY.

All this got me thinking about, how come there are so many damn timeline sites, and only a couple of them show up in google searches, and how come only a few haven't prevailed by now, and none of them have the features i am looking for??!! i know everyone is thinking about ideas for startups, so how come no one has started up one ideal timeline that does or maybe doesn't incorporate all of our online stuff (blah blah yet another thing to connect to MySpace, Facebook, google this and picasa that...)? What i'm after is something that automatically saves my status updates or Twittrs (since they somewhat document my goings-on), and that all my friends can contribute to while having their own timelines...not a timeline that i have to look at separately from my own! Because, after all, my friends and family's timelines are intrinsically connected with my own life...so why would i want to separate them? (With the exception of some things, of course, which i should be able to determine with an easy on or off privacy thing...)

1 comment:

  1. Talk to MiChe about Flash applications for something like this. You know the talent base to start your own start-up!

    ReplyDelete