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25 June 2009 tagged history, timelines, timelines.com with no comments
As a new site, we are asked this question a lot, along with “Who should use Timelines.com?” and various and sundry others. So I thought I’d address these over the next few blog posts.
What is Timelines.com??
Timelines.com enables people and entities (i.e. anyone) to record, publicly share and discover history about almost anything in an event by event manner using pictures, videos, maps and descriptions. Recorded events on the site can be those that you participated in - where your photos, videos and descriptions are the primary information (see the Bolder Boulder as an example). Or the events can be those that you did not participate in - where other people’s videos, photos and descriptions are used to describe the event (see Obama’s speech to the American Medical Association as an example).
Think history by the people, for the people… or the history of us (our tag line, by the way)… or user-generated history with multiple perspectives on an event… or world history (academic and non-academic) assembled, contributed and judged by people like you… all with functionality to connect events across time, place and type of event. That’s what Timelines.com is.
Our perspective is that history (big and small) is being created every day, and the vast, vast majority of it is not recorded. And the stuff that is recorded is not done in a very cohesive or lasting way. Maybe you attended a concert, witnessed a notable event, went to your town’s summer parade, founded a company, built a house, or got married - and you wanted to record and share it. All of this is history of one sort or another. Sure, you could blog about it, post it to YouTube, put it on your Facebook or MySpace page or tweet it. These are good options for sharing very recent history immediately. But these sites do not do a great job of holding your event’s place in history or of connecting it with other events that have been chronicled by you and others. After a few days, your post is basically gone. Timelines.com provides more permanence and cohesiveness for recording your event in history, and it provides distribution for your posts. So keep writing your blog and/or posting to Facebook, and record your events on Timelines.com with links back to your posts.
“What about Wikipedia?”, you may ask. Yes, Wikipedia is a great resource that is built by a group of volunteers, but it is not built to connect events to one another through time and space. And because it is a wiki, only one perspective on an event can be ultimately published. Wikipedia also takes a very academic view of history, so you likely won’t be able to publish something on Wikipedia which is not judged to be “historically notable enough” by the curator(s) of that topic area. Timelines.com lets you recording your event in history without any screening due to “notability”, and the site provides for multiple perspectives and descriptions of the same event.
I’ll answer more questions about our site over my next few posts. I’d especially love to hear your thoughts about our site - what you like and what you think we can do better. Please feel free to drop a comment below or email us at feedback@timelines.com.
Keep contributing to “the history of us.”
Posted by Bob Armour
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27 May 2009 tagged illinois politics, rod blagojevich, roland burris, timelines with Comments Off
If you follow Illinois politics, you know that the action and happenings with Rod Blagojevich and Roland Burris are unfolding fast and furious. The following timelines help to keep things in order and perspective. Feel free to add to and/or share these.
Rod Blagojevich Timeline
Roland Burris Timeline
Posted by Bob Armour
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30 April 2009 tagged swine flu, timeline with 1 comment
Check out a timeline of the Swine Flu that is developing on Timelines.com. If you have videos, pictures or events to add to it, please do - Timelines.com enables people to collaboratively record history.
Chart of Phases of Pandemic Influenza
Posted by Bob Armour
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21 April 2009 tagged launch, timelines.com with no comments
Action photo of the launch
I’m very excited to share that we launched a new site today: Timelines.com!
Timelines.com allows people (anyone!) to discover, record and share history collaboratively. “History” is whatever anybody wants to record and share- like the launching of a new web site for instance. Or a concert, an inauguration, a war, an impeachment, a parade, a baseball game, a spelling bee … anything.
If you blog about events or have a site devoted to the history of something, post excerpts from and/or links to your site. Share you knowledge and get discovered by visitors who are looking for the topics that you cover.
So check out the site. Start recording history. And tell us what you think at feedback@timelines.com.
Major kudos to Scott, Geoff, Zach and Trevor who did the heavy lifting on this! Great work guys!
Posted by Bob Armour
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2 April 2009 tagged citylights awards, illinois technology association, ita, lifesnapz with no comments
I’m excited to share that we were named a finalist for a Illinois Technology Association CityLights Award in the Newcomer category! Here’s the press release. Voting is open to all Illinois technology companies and executives, as well as CityLights attendees, until April 8th at 11:59pm. The event happens on April 23rd. So vote for LifeSnapz now!
Posted by Bob Armour
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31 March 2009 tagged classroom use, history tool, kindergarten, lifesnapz, online education tool, timelines with 2 comments
Cushing Community School
Recently I’ve blogged about different ways people are using LifeSnapz in their businesses. I blogged about a marketing services company that uses LifeSnapz as a content and project management tool and a film production company that is using LifeSnapz to catalogue and track filming locations, costs and vendors.
Today, LifeSnapz is going to school… kindergarten to be exact.
Beth Vickery, a kindergarten teacher at Cushing Community School in Cushing, Maine is building timelines with her students using LifeSnapz. Here is the interview with Beth on how she is using LifeSnapz.
LifeSnapz: Please provide a description of the task for which you are using LifeSnapz.
Beth Vickery: My kindergarten is building a timeline. The project was inspired by my students’ line of inquiry during a presentation by our French teacher about castles. The students wanted to know how long ago the castles were built and how that related to other events from history. (The voyage of the Mayflower, life of Martin Luther King, Jr., Abe Lincoln, etc.). The project is snowballing to include a wide range of topics from how long our town’s general store has been in operation to how long a squirrel stayed on our feeder to when Legos were invented.
LS: How many people does your group consist of? What type of people are using/accessing the site (adults, kids, web-savvy, non-web savvy, etc.)
BV: The group currently has 13 members in all: 4 full members and 9 view only members. The full members include me, my education technician, our librarian, and my husband. I hope to get a member of our town historical society to become a full member, too. The view only members include parents of current students, past students from ranging in age from 12 to 20, and other school personnel.
The group members range from avid web users to those who have never participated in a web 2.0 environment (social networking, blogging, etc.). I am hoping to start posting my students’ writing to this project soon, but I’ll have to do the posting for all but one or two of them.
LS: How hard was it for the others to get up to speed on using LifeSnapz?
BV: People seem to feel comfortable posting content to the site right away.
LS: How hard was it to convince others that LifeSnapz would be useful?
BV: Most people think this project is pretty neat and are impressed that kindergarten kids are into this kind of a project.
LS: Were you surprised by anything in your group’s use of LifeSnapz?
BV: I am not really surprised, and I’m pleased at how Lifesnapz helps my students see history in context and increases their higher level thinking. My students have an understanding of time and history that I’d not observed in this age group prior to using Lifesnapz. It also helps them connect historical events in new ways.
LS: How did you discover LifeSnapz?
BV: I did a Google search specifically looking for a time line tool that would include maps. (After the aforementioned castle presentation.)
LS: Why do you like LifeSnapz for performing this project? Any particular features that stand out to you?
BV: My class is really enjoying our project, and it is a great way to weave a classroom full of unique interests into a group project. I like that we can seamlessly combine mapping, pictures, video, and commentary to the recording of an event.
I like that we can look at time in a variety of spans from century to 12 hours. When we had a squirrel on our bird feeder for “a long time” my students could easily see that was a different kind of long time than how long our general store has been in business.
I also like the way my students can see how events relate to one another. (Our store opened in Abe Lincoln’s life time, for example.). It’s also nice to be able to look at events by location on the map feature, and I like that I can tag events and toggle between different time spans.
Finally, it’s great to have a choice of how to view the information we post, and I really appreciate the automatic email alerts when there is activity in my group.
LS: Had you used anything else to accomplish your task prior to using LifeSnapz? If so, what did you like or dislike about the alternative solution? If not, did you consider anything else?
BV: The other programs I looked at did not include mapping. Lifesnapz sowed up pretty early in my search and seemed to fit the bill. I have not tried this sort of a project before as it is supposed to be beyond the grasp of six year olds to understand time like this. Lifesnapz does for time what Google Earth does for place. Google Earth has made mapping less abstract and more accessible to very young children, and Lifesnapz seems to be doing this with time.
LS: OK, it sounds like you’d give LifeSnapz a passing grade. The site can’t be perfect. What would you improve on LifeSnapz?
BV: In one respect, I like having control over who is in the group and who contributes, but I wish it was easier for people to just view the information. I think visitors to my wiki may not bother to look at this project because they must register to become part of my group. I wish the timeline would extend to BC…for example, my class would like to include the invention/discovery of Pi on our timeline. Also, it would be great to be able to move from an event to exactly that point on the timeline without having to scroll through time. It would also be nice to be able to color code the lines based on tags. We embed Voki talking avatars into our wiki and use voice thread to create other projects. It would be really neat to be able to leave audio comments in Lifesnapz, too.
For the most part, though, Lifesnapz was exactly what I was looking for to help with this project.
LS: Thanks for your feedbak. Anything else you’d like to say?
BV: Stay tuned…we’re just getting started with this project and we seem to be gaining momentum! I may be presenting at my state technology conference for educators next year. Maybe I’ll present about this project and your site. I haven’t seen anyone else bring this kind of a project to that convention.
Thanks Beth for using LifeSnapz and for including the site in your class. We’re thrilled that we can help with your lessons.
Are you using LifeSnapz in a unique way? We’d love to hear from you. Let us know at feedback@lifesnapz.com.
Posted by Bob Armour
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20 March 2009 tagged family history, storytelling with no comments
Last week I blogged about storytelling and its importance to the well-being of children. I was referred to a NYT article from August 2008 that has five tips for telling good stories. Though this article comes at storytelling from a business/career angle, it’s suggestions are useful in any storytelling situation.
The five tips in the article are:
1. Keep it simple
2. Openings and closings are important
3. Be mindful of your story’s spine
4. Make sure not to alienate your audience
5. Tell the truth
You can read the whole article here.
Posted by Bob Armour
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13 March 2009 tagged family history, storytelling with no comments
I came across a good article and post in the Wall Street Journal regarding the general growing interest in family storytelling and the importance it plays in the mental health and well-being of children in a family.
The author says:
As parents cut budgets, many are finding family stories have surprising power to help children through hard times. Storytelling experts say the phenomenon reflects a growing national interest in telling tales, evidenced by a rise in storytelling events and festivals. New research bears out the value of family stories, linking teens’ knowledge of them to better behavior and mental health.
An Emory University study of 65 families with children ages 14 to 16 found kids’ ability to retell parents’ stories was linked to a lower rate of depression and anxiety and less acting-out of frustration or anger, says Robyn Fivush, a psychology professor. Knowing family stories “helps children put their own experience in perspective,” Dr. Fivush says.
Stories resonate with kids, and they definitely remember them. About four months ago, my mom told my six-year old daughter a story from 30+ years ago about the time we got our dog Pepper, and how Pepper first showed up on our doorstep during a cold and snowy winter night. We don’t know how Pepper got there. (My daughter has been wanting a dog for the past 3 years, with no success). Last week, during one of our many recent cold nights, my daughter said, “Maybe a dog like Pepper will show up for us tonight.” This was the first time in since my mom told her that story that she mentioned it, so clearly it made an impression on her and something triggered the memory.
During these tough economic times, it is especially important to focus on what’s really important - family members and close relationships. Be sure to record and tell (and re-tell) the stories that keep the family memories alive, so that the younger generations can learn from them and future generations will carry them on.
Posted by Bob Armour
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23 February 2009 tagged content management system, database, timelines, video production with no comments
Last month I blogged about how three marketing companies (marketingFOLIO, Fathom and NMV Strategies) were using LifeSnapz as a collaborative marketing planning tool in an engagement with a client (Odyssey Logistics and Technology).
This month, we were contacted by a video production company that is using LifeSnapz in their business to track and catalogue film locations. This company shoots on location between 4 - 8 times per week, and the locations are typically various businesses and homes. Below is their case study as answered by Barbara M., Production Manager. (Note: the company asked to stay anonymous due to competitive reasons).
How is your company using LifeSnapz?
We are using LifeSnapz as a database of our available video shooting locations. Each location where filming takes place, whether it is a condo, home or business is an “Event”. LifeSnapz enables us to fill in all necessary information related to the location: exact address of location, contact information, a full description of the location, the date(s) that filming took place, pictures of the location, and tags of the location. We also record and track the amount paid for the filming.
Who is using LifeSnapz at your company?
Other producers are using LifeSnapz, and they are using LifeSnapz to upload new locations and search and compare across locations. Executives tap into LifeSnapz in order to review, comment on, and approve locations. They also use LifeSnapz to help them find an appropriate location for a specific need.
How did you discover LifeSnapz?
I recall searching on Google for a program or system with your capabilities. I cannot recall the keywords that I used, but it ranged along the lines of “Database” or “Content Management.”
Why do you like LifeSnapz for performing your tasks? Any particular features that stand out to you?
I am particularly happy with the site’s overall ease of use. Another feature that has become rather useful, which I had not thought of until I started using Lifesnapz, is the “Discussion” feature. Each time we use a location we update the “Discussion” with the date, shoot and rate paid. This becomes part of the location’s history, and we can use this information when the location is being considered again.
Had you used anything else to accomplish this task prior to using LifeSnapz? If so, what did you like or dislike about the alternative solutions?
I have not tried another program other than LifeSnapz for this use. For a different company, we used a content management system for which I cannot recall the name. However, I do remember that we could not add pictures to this system, so I started searching for something with similar capabilities that could handle photos.
Thank you Barbara for using LifeSnapz and for providing your feedback.
If you are using LifeSnapz (either as an individual or a business) and you have some feedback or a story to share, please let us know at feedback@lifesnapz.com - we love to hear from our users!
Posted by Bob Armour
