In the midst of writing about newly launched hype-machines, I’m always flattered when I come across a tool that I haven’t heard about, but is well-built and already accumulating users. Such was Dipity, when I saw an embedded widget on the blog of a certain webebrity. The site aggregates services a la FriendFeed and other ‘activity aggregators’ (© Sid Yadav 2008) but presents them in a neat way.
The service functions on timelines — you can use the site to browse through the ones that have been created categorically, or create your own. At its core, it takes RSS feeds and puts them into a visual timeline — nothing technologically fancy, until you see the results.
To create one, you simply sign up and supply it with usernames to various online services, or any RSS feed. Currently, Dipity natively supports most of the usual ones like YouTube, Twitter, WordPress, Last.fm, Flickr and Yelp. Once you’ve inputted your presences, Dipity gives you a timeline — and that’s the end of it. Here’s mine.
The timeline is scrollable, and since (unlike others) Dipity indexes your past first and adds with your present, you get to see the results instantly. The Twitter posts are definitely the most telling. You can also zoom in to get a clear view. But although the service is mainly focused on timelines, that’s not the end of it. It provides you with a list view, flipbook (increbily cool), and a mapview for your geo-tagged items.
It’s amazing to see your online life represented in this way and definitely something — if you sign up for now — you’ll look back in a few years if you still remember the service (and it’s still around.) But of course, it’s not just for your own online life — the service works great as a timelining service in general, and there are a number of neat ones created. As a recently turned Iron Man-fanatic, this one caught my interest (and believe me, there are some other neat ones if you look).
