

Show HN: Create a beautiful timeline with TimeKiwi - mihar
http://timekiwi.com

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bprater
Would be nice to see a full page sample of what it looks like!

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mihar
I just added examples of companies and individuals on the front page. Good
tip.

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garry
Wow, honored to be on your homepage! Thanks. Can I claim my account? =)

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mihar
This was a weekend project and started as a proof of concept that a timeline
can be created completely on the client side. That's why don't get fooled by
the occasional choking of our kiwi squeezer, it's just the APIs that are
unstable.

Depending on the feedback we'll receive, we also have a business version in
the works.

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listic
Interesting idea, beautiful timelines.

But I can't figure what goes on the left and what on the right. Vertical line
implies those are two distinct types of information.

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mihar
Hmm, vertical line was planned to be just a node, from out of which events in
time grow out. That being said, there's no difference between left and right.

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davidu
Nice UI -- The application doesn't move the needle for me, but it's certainly
a nice looking service.

As an aside, I think one of the things people like about Facebook's timeline
is the intelligence involved in deciding what to show and what not to show
(and how it evolves over time).

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mihar
It's true, but as this was a simple client-side only experiment I couldn't go
into those depths. In the future, when the paid version is server-side we'll
probably implement more intelligent aggregation, grouping and other stuff.

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alexkearns
For a second, I thought you were referencing our app - <http://www.tiki-
toki.com> !

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ordinathorreur
Another timeline HN guy checking in here! I built <http://www.timetoast.com> a
couple of years ago and I love seeing new timeline apps pop up. Good luck
guys, they both look great :)

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epaga
Nice! I'm curious - do you guys plan an API or something? Why I ask is I'm one
of the devs of LineTime, an iPad/iPhone app which displays world history as a
zoomable timeline. I could envision an app where people can view or download
their own custom timelines using your data and our timeline visualization...

Anyhow, here's a demo video of LineTime:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW__WZ6pxJ8> Shoot me an email if you're
interested: john @ linetimeapp com

 __Edit __: Just noticed the timeline stuff is created client-side only, so
maybe it isn't as good a fit as I thought. Are you planning on enabling
clients to store timeline info on a server and create their own timelines?

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pyrtsa
Hmm, I think the months menu [1] that opens when you take the mouse to the
bottom right corner should have months listed in the opposite order. It feels
more logical to get the most recent months down, closest to the mouse cursor,
and the least recent furthest up.

[1]:
[http://timekiwi.com/timeline.html#posterous=garry.posterous....](http://timekiwi.com/timeline.html#posterous=garry.posterous.com)

Edit: Ok, it might not feel that natural anymore with the scrolling behavior,
since the timeline itself has time pointing upwards. How about moving the menu
to the top?

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mihar
Yep, also we were also thinking about the order in the horizontal version [1]
to be reversed. What are your thoughts on that?

[1]:
[http://timekiwi.com/timeline.html#orientation=horizontal,pos...](http://timekiwi.com/timeline.html#orientation=horizontal,posterous=garry.posterous.com),

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drac
I really like the idea and UI, thanks for sharing.

Minor typo: Let it be investors, founders, owners or just _jourself_ should be
"yourself".

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alphakappa
This is probably awesome, but it might be nice to show a few example
timelines. I don't really want to fill out a bunch of fields before I
understand what this is all about. Not just because I'm lazy, but also because
it's in your interest to show me (and others) what this is about. Always
assume that your visitors are itching to hit the 'back' button.

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gokhan
Check the bottom of the page for "Examples of People", "Examples of
Companies".

Here's one:

[http://timekiwi.com/timeline.html#orientation=vertical,twitt...](http://timekiwi.com/timeline.html#orientation=vertical,twitter=garrytan,posterous=garry.posterous.com),

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swah
Perhaps you guys could try auto-converting some Wiki articles (or a category
page, like US Presidents) to generate content?

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swiecki
You jerks! Don't you dare tell me not to try it now. I saw that and thought,
"Dammit I'm trying this immediately!"

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yogrish
Very neat UI. Love the feature of "Rotate" to view timline in both ways..
..Does this app show data of prev 1 month. If so Period selection would be
awesome. My fav.time line till now: <http://37signals.com/about>

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kra
Add support for more feeds, ideally a plain default for RSS/Atom, and I'll be
excited to try it. I'm currently using <http://memolane.com/>.

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kilian
You can make those timelines instantly more cool by using oEmbeds, for example
via <http://embed.ly/> ;)

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freejack
I would have tried to buy "timelime.com" - or maybe they did and had to settle
for timekiwi.com

Either way, great looking app. Good luck.

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Shenglong
Really awesome idea, it's gorgeous too.

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itsnotvalid
Can I put my facebook profile to this too? (the one in facebook seems to be
broken)

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mihar
Facebook connect is in the works, but it will likely require the server-side
version.

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dbz
It looks like they liked the new Facebook timeline and put it on Twitter

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user-id
No kidding. This however has a lot more potential thanks to support for
multiple sources. That said, I can see Facebook adding support to Timeline for
content aggregation using other online services.

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navs
I'm curious. Why the 'Kiwi' in TimeKiwi? Are you based in New Zealand?

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tadruj
Low or non-existing SEO and a thing that everybody knows. No New Zealand, but
we'd like to go there :)

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mieses
do you see any difference between a chronological log and a timeline?

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tadruj
log being all things and timeline being important things ?

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mieses
There is more to the time dimension than just chronology. The amount of time
between events, the frequency of events, etc?

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LeandroLovisolo
Minor typo: "Timekiwi fetches activities from _tiwtter_ ".

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graemem
Your page says "Don't try it now", so I didn't.

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cedlimed
sweet ui, would have loved a clickable scroller on both ends of the horizontal
timeline though

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mihar
Good tip, I was pretty struggling with providing some logical navigation in
the horizontal mode.

I settled with some vertical-scroll translation to horizontal-scroll in order
to facilitate people with mice with scroll-wheels...

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monkeygus
pretty cool. nice ui , but it does react strangely when you hit the back
button in the browser

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mihar
Yep, it's one of those kinks we'll iron out as this goes into more serious
use.

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mihar
Just shipped Posterous support.

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yogrish
what is the stack/web technologies you have used?

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mihar
So as this was an experiment in client-side scripting and to see if I can
create something viable just with that:

\- HTML5 \- CSS3 \- JavaScript

Ok, I have to admit, I used a server-side proxy to convert RSS to JSONP. :)
That one's a sinatra app.

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geekytenny
It is nice.

