Dipity Creates Visually Interactive Lifestreaming Timelines

Dipity is a new service that has come out that allows you to create both the prettiest and visually functional timeline I have yet to see on the web. The timeline can be created to represent any historic information. They currently have over 20,000 timelines that cover a broad range of themes. Timelines are created either by entering items manually, or by adding a feed. That’s where the Lifestreaming aspect of building a timeline comes into play. They currently support the ability to import from Picasa, Twitter, Pandora, WordPress.com, Last.fm, Flickr, Yelp, Blogger, Youtube, and any other supplied RSS Feed.

After you’ve given Dipity your data it quickly generates the visual timeline for you. The timeline allows multiple zoom levels by length of time displayed. You then scroll horizontally across your timeline, as well as click on individual items within it. Items within the timeline are shown using varying sizes and clicking on smaller items zooms them in along with the timeframe of the timeline. Once an individual items is clicked on it will display details and images if available as well as link to where the source data lives if pulled in from a feed.

This functionality is a bit hard to describe so thankfully they offer the ability to embed. Below I have provided a rich example of a timeline for the discography of Depeche Mode

Along with the timelines, they also offer three other methods to view the data. List view is a more traditional chronological view, Flipbook view is a coverflow type method, and Map View offers a world map view if the items are geo tagged.

If you’re a fan of nice visual interfaces and want to experiment with a totally different visual representation of your Lifestream, this service is worth taking a look at. You can take a look at the Lifestream Timeline I created here.

If you want to take a look at some other services that offer a less functional timeline, but a richer a Lifestreaming experience, take a look at Dandelife & iStalkr

Lastly, if you are really interested in timelines, there is a very popular code project called Simile Timeline that you can use to create your own as well.