
Show HN: Timeline.com - rohamg
http://timeline.com/
======
beisner
Wow. Excellent execution of an awesome idea. Seriously, I've always lamented
the fact that news is never presented with enough background, and the fact
that these articles allow the user to either get an overview or an in-depth
history is really exciting. I currently use Yahoo News Digest for quick
updates about the day's events, but this complements that form of news
consumption very nicely and I could see myself using it often.

Minor point, the UI is a bit glitchy and sometimes the header bar shakes back
and forth. Also, navigation from within stories is unclear - I couldn't figure
out how to get back to the front page section. I'm not sure if the
functionality isn't there or just wasn't working, but a swipe left to go back
would be much more user friendly.

Well done, and congrats on launching!

------
rohamg
Wow. Thank you so much for the positive outpour of support, we are near the
point of tears of joy with today's launch!

I'd like to take a minute and get back to all your questions and comments:

* Bugs and glitches: please keep the feedback coming! This is a version 1.0 product, so we're standing ready to fix issues ASAP as they come up.

* Technology choice: the iOS app is entirely native, written in Swift. The API is written in GO, and the web app is Angular.JS. Very shiny new tech all-around!

* Native vs. Web: We have a native iOS app on the AppStore right now, all other platforms can access full functionality via our web app [http://m.timeline.com](http://m.timeline.com)

* Maps and geographical exploration: Can't say much except "coming soon". If you have an interest, experience, or actual technology in this area we'd love to work with you.

* Contributing: We'd love to hear from you, and we'd love your help. Shoot us an email: beta@timeline.com

~~~
LiweiZ
Regarding maps and geographical exploration, I agree with you that should be
at lower priority. I think start from events happening now such as news is a
much better and more efficient way to foster the positive feedback loop. When
the timeline module is more polished and with more resources, it could be a
good time to explore the module for map layer. Eventually, combining both
layers to have a tool that I dream of. I'm just someone interested in this
because of how powerful I think it could be. At this moment, I don't have
enough skills to bring it to life. Nice work.

------
JacobMauer
I think this is great execution but I'm not sure I would use it over
Wikipedia. If I want to know the timeline of Boko Haram, I think I would get
more objective and comprehensive timeline information, with sources, from
Wikipedia's page on Boko Haram* than the Timeline.com page __.

1
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_Haram#2009](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_Haram#2009)

2 [https://m.timeline.com/#!/stories/boko-haram-nigeria-
history](https://m.timeline.com/#!/stories/boko-haram-nigeria-history)

~~~
anextio
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, Timeline is a news app that appears to publish
articles with historical context and an innovative UI.

Why would you compare them? Apples and oranges, imho.

------
nolk100
That would not have been a cheap domain name to acquire, especially after
Facebook rebranding 'the wall' as 'the timeline'.

~~~
tslater2006
Just did a quick site price estimator, probably not super accurate but it said
about 18k. [http://www.siteprice.org/website-
worth/www.timeline.com](http://www.siteprice.org/website-
worth/www.timeline.com)

~~~
adamnemecek
I'm not sure how reliable that site is considering it's estimating the domain
thehungergames.wikia.com to be worth $30.1M [http://www.siteprice.org/website-
worth/www.thehungergames.wi...](http://www.siteprice.org/website-
worth/www.thehungergames.wikia.com)

~~~
ph0rque
Also, insurance.com, which was sold for $35.6 million[0], was estimated to be
worth <$29k[1].

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_domain_n...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_domain_names)

[1] [http://www.siteprice.org/website-
worth/www.insurance.com](http://www.siteprice.org/website-
worth/www.insurance.com)

------
aaronbrethorst
Very, very cool. I'm skeptical about your chances of success (I feel like news
startups are just behind music startups in terms of mortality rate), but I've
been wanting something that looks like this for a good long while. I think the
lack of this sort of resource has done a grave disservice to our understanding
of world events. So, thanks a lot for agreeing with me, and acting on it :)

(n.b. I'm a mobile engineer at NBC News, and arguably in direct competition
with these folks.)

------
ashwinl
I like the thought that has gone into expressing the app's motivations. As a
curated app, I was interested in learning about the people behind it. Your
About, FAQ/Editorial and Licenses section under timeline.com/about was fun to
read. Too bad it was hidden away on the homepage. But, maybe you did this
intentionally.

I'm in the process of working on a timeline-like design, non news related, so
this piqued my interest.

------
normloman
I like the idea of presenting news with related articles for historical
context. I don't think I'd download an app. But if it were a website, I'd go
there to learn more about a current news topic.

~~~
feroz1
Yeah I would love this to be a website. I tend to read news at work (!) on my
lunchbreak, on my desktop, so would love this to be a website.

------
LiweiZ
I planned a tool to combine both timeline and map to be a tool for history
exploration. With geography layer and time together, history can be shown in a
clearer and impressive way. If one set of those by one user can be called a
set. When grouping multiple related sets from different users, it must be
amazing. It could be a game changer tool for history research and education.
Moving those "meta" data to layers we can easily understand is a dream.
Hopefully, I'm able to see it happens soon:)

------
knowaveragejoe
This is great. Will definitely be my go-to app to kill some time and catch up
on things.

I noticed an odd sentence structure in an article though. Not sure whether
this text was generated, wasn't copy-edited or I'm just not reading it
correctly:

> Gadhafi's compound in Tripoli was connected to a web of secret tunnels. But
> they did not save him: the tunnels where Gadhafi was captured in a tunnel
> while trying to escape Sirte, his hometown, in a golf cart.

~~~
findjashua
yep, 'the tunnels where' in the last sentence seems like a typo

------
Stately
This is beautiful. It really shows that a lot of thought has been put into it.
Have you guys thought about using CartoDB's Oddysey.js[0] to integrate maps in
your timelines? It seems both projects are very related to each other.

(Full disclosure, I'm a CartoDB employee, although not involved in Oddysey's
development)

[0]
[http://cartodb.github.io/odyssey.js/](http://cartodb.github.io/odyssey.js/)

------
ddorian43
Why can't that be a website ?

Why do you have to make console-exclusives ?

~~~
lewi
[https://m.timeline.com/](https://m.timeline.com/)

~~~
hnriot
[https://m.timeline.com/bower_components/angular-
facebook/lib...](https://m.timeline.com/bower_components/angular-
facebook/lib/angular-facebook.js) Failed to load resource:
net::ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT [https://www.google-
analytics.com/analytics.js](https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js)
Failed to load resource: net::ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT app.js:4 Uncaught Error:
[$injector:modulerr] Failed to instantiate module timeline due to: Error:
[$injector:modulerr] Failed to instantiate module facebook due to: Error:
[$injector:nomod] Module 'facebook' is not available! You either misspelled
the module name or forgot to load it. If registering a module ensure that you
specify the dependencies as the second argument.

Chrome/Linux Version 39.0.2171.95 (64-bit)

~~~
sync
It's your ad/privacy blocker, FYI.

~~~
zo1
Not working for me on a fresh install of IE10. I.e. (no pun intended) not due
to any sort of ad/privacy blocker.

~~~
ericlin2004
Yup, this is an error on our end. We've got a fix for it in the next build.
Thanks guys!

------
adamfeldman
I've been dreaming about a site like this for years. Casual newsreaders need
context given to them in a friendly way so they can properly engage with the
content. Vox.com explainers are one thing but this is even better. Kudos on
launching!!

------
cheriot
I LOVE anything that will add the needed context to news stories.

The article on Boko Haram is good. I like video and income map. The actual
timeline functionality on the web view still needs some work. With a good
timeline you can "feel" the differences in timespan.

Overall, I like the idea and the content. More please!

------
habosa
I think the servers must be getting killed because the mobile web version
loads incredibly slowly or not at all.

Also @rohamg I think there are some compatibility issues. In Firefox for
Android I see only the site logo on a gray background. Chrome for Android
loads ... eventually.

------
arjn
Oh, Oh! ... dammit. I've been think about something like this for a while now.
Nicely done.

------
fab1an
_Absolutely_ love the insight of news being "the short tail of a very long
string of events". Along with the promising execution this could well be one
of those tremendously successful ideas that look trivially logical in
hindsight.

------
teh_klev
No IOS device here. Trying to use the "mobile-web" app but all I get is an
empty page with your logo then eventually Chrome asks me if I want to kill the
page(on my PC) or nothing happening at all on my Moto G.

------
discardorama
I don't have a mobile device, so I can't really tell what's going on. Can
someone give a brief overview of what this is about? It's supposed to be a new
way of browsing news, right?

~~~
pioul
The mobile web app works great on desktop as well:
[https://m.timeline.com](https://m.timeline.com)

------
Jamie452
Can I ask, was this at all inspired by reading my blog post that I posted here
last year?

Looks awesome!

[http://jamie.st/blog/news-timeline-v2/](http://jamie.st/blog/news-
timeline-v2/)

------
ABNWZ
Looks like this has been developed using the famo.us framework? I only say
this because the parallax effect in the video is very reminiscent of a famo.us
demo that was there yesterday but gone today.

~~~
CodeWithCoffee
Their about page lists the licenses for several native iOS libraries
(AFNetworking, etc) which suggests it is mostly native.

~~~
DevoAKA
Dev here. It's all native. Our iOS team says, "some of the third party
libraries we have are Objective-C, but we've only written Swift code."

------
grumblestumble
With your servers seemingly being hit kind of hard, I'd recommend a refactor
pass to using ng-bind over {{ }} syntax. Seeing unparsed expressions all over
the place on your web app.

~~~
ericlin2004
Hi grumblestumble, we're on it now. Thanks for the heads up!

------
dadair
Very small thing, but there is a space missing after the period in the
tagline:

"..string of events.Timeline weaves those.."

Otherwise looks awesome!

~~~
schtick
Great eye, and thanks for the feedback! We'll fix pronto.

------
dbla
I love the tagline. It's short, sweet, and immediately gets the point across.
Great job!

------
fiatjaf
The only way to understand what does it do is by watching a video?

------
91pavan
Pretty awesome idea. I'm willing to contribute.

------
ajjai
Thats one premium domain...

~~~
AustinDizzy
It's gotta be part of the business strategy. If the business itself flops,
they've always got the increasingly popular domain name to sell to the highest
bidder.

------
setheron
pretty good domain name

~~~
tuananh
just "pretty good"? When i heard of Timeline now, I think of Facebook. This
domain worths quite a lot i think.

------
buren
Great idea! Congrats

------
sandy007
good idea, congratulations!

