NING Networks Need a Timeline Widget

[Asil]

One of the biggest challenges creators have is curating our vasty piles of content.  And, helping the community find that data over time.  We have some fun tools built into the platform now (like the Leader Boards and the revamped Activity feed), but these are designed to serve what's current.  What about great content that was created months (or years) ago?

I've been looking at tools that create timelines and found a company called Tiki-Toki that has a very elegant and easy-to-use interface.  For $5 a month, you can embed the timelines you create on their platform into your website. 

I would LOVE for NING to offer a timeline widget like this.  Its something I would pay for as an add-on or upgrade my account to take advantage of.

How wonderful it would be if the NING timeline widget allowed you to auto-create a timeline using designated key-word!  However, I'd be happy with one that had to be manually created if that was the only way it could be programmed. 

If timelines are something you'd like to see offered by NING, please comment to this thread.  NING uses views and comments as a way to track interest.  Thanks!

[Aside: I am not affiliated with Tiki-Toki in any way.  I present them only as an example of how this idea it being executed on other platforms.]

[Thiago Santos de Moraes]

The Wibiya bar has a good timeline too.

[Asil]

@ Thiago.  I checked their site and didn't see a user-created timeline offered.  From what I could find, they appear to aggregate your accounts on other platforms into a button-bar.

Do you have an example of their timeline you can share?

[Thiago Santos de Moraes]

See this app: http://wibiya.conduit.com/web_application/ContentTimeline.

In this blog: http://www.claudiocloureiro.blogspot.com.br/ you can see the app in action ("Linha do tempo").

[Patrick Chappelle]

Nice, Thiago!

[Thiago Santos de Moraes]

In this Ning community we can see the Wibiya app in action:

http://surfer-shot.com/

[Scott Bishop]

I just put it up via this discussion. It doesn't go back that far right now but I believe the start of the time line will remain thru time... I hope :)

[Asil]

Thanks for sharing more information about this product. 

The Surfer-Shot community (tasty pictures!) is using All of Me (http://www.allofme.com/platform.html) to create their timeline feed.  Wibiya has a partnership of some kind with AllofMe, so they are not producing timelines themselves.  Here's how they describe it: "Wibiya has cooperated with AllofMe to leverage the AllofMe platform for helping bloggers view their blog archive over a timeline."

I'm thinking the creator of Surfer-Shot is using the RSS from the NING 'latest activity' feed to create the effect. Its nifty, though it doesn't appear to offer the degree of customizing I found in Tiki-Toki.  However, it IS auto-populated, which is great if you're starting a new site.

One of the hesitations I have using third-party tools like AllInOne or Tiki-Toki is I know they will slow down the load-time on my NING site.  Also, as browsers and users become more sophisticated about privacy protections, they block cookies and the like which these 'free' plugins use to gather information for sale.  [Remember, if its free ...you are the product.]  

If NING were to develop their own integrated timeline widget, that would negate concerns about load-lag and user security.   

[Julie Hochstadter]

great idea.  I also have LOADS of content and its so hard for me and my 7,000 members to shift through 4 years of great data. 

[Asil]

I'm curious if anyone else reading this thread has seen timelines used effectively on NING networks?

Also, if this is an idea that appeals to you, please do poke the thread with a comment.  The NING developers use activity in a suggestion like this as one of their 'shall we implement' benchmarks. 

Thanks!

[Scott Bishop]

I looked into my Wibiya analytics and I've had zero clicks onto this timeline feature out of the last 20K views.

[Asil]

That's interesting, Scott. Maybe the location and its conservative form-factor is at fault? If I hadn't been looking for the tool, I would not have found it.  Its a neat thing when opened, but was rather obscured by the more branded content (facebook and twitter links, etc).   

Do you have your own site activity stripped from the analytics?  [I use google analytics on my sites and have my personal content masked out, so it doesn't effect the usage stats.]  If so, that could be a check to see if the wibiya analytics are picking up the actual traffic.  I just interacted with it again ...might want to see tomorrow if the analytics show that touch.

[Scott Bishop]

Oh, I used my Google analytics to see how many viewers for a length of time (showing the 20K views) then looked at Wibiya analytics to see how many clicks onto the "time-line" icon were used in that same Google time frame.

If I remember, I'll check again tomorrow... My mind does run short:)