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Three Open Source Timeline Tools And Thoughts On The Future Of News Timelines « 10,000 Words

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Three Open Source Timeline Tools And Thoughts On The Future Of News Timelines

We’ve long-touted Dipity as a great tool for making timelines, but the days of free, online tools are quickly being replaced by an era of free open-source tools.  While Dipity is still great if you want an easy-to-use interface and are willing to shell out $50/month for unlimited use, open source timelines give you ultimate control and ownership of your content.

1. ProPublica’s Timeline Setter

Timeline Setter is by far my favorite of the open-source toosl because it’s easy to use and was created with a news organization in mind (read previous 10,000 Words coverage about Timeline Setter here). From the site’s description:

It is a command-line utility that takes a specially-structured CSV file as input and outputs standards-compliant HTML/CSS/JavaScript. It supports any span of time from minutes to years, and supports multiple parallel event series in a single timeline. It can handle custom descriptions and even arbitrary HTML in each event “card.” It creates fluid embeds that will look great at any width.

The CSV structure that powers the data for the timeline is relatively straight-forward. You have a column for the date, the title and the description, then an HTML field to input photos or video. If you’ve never used a Ruby package before or worked in command line, students at CUNY have put together a dead simple video tutorial to show you the way (part I embedded below; see part II on YouTube):

Customizing the look of the timeline means tweaking a little CSS, although the default styles from ProPublica are slick and professional.

Here are some examples of news organizations using Timeline Setter:

LA Times

Chicago Tribune

 

2. Similie Timeline

Simlie Timeline is one of the older open-source options out there. I personally don’t think it’s as clean as Timeline Setter (or as easy to create), but I do like that all the key information is visible upon first load of the timeline, whereas Timeline Setter’s default layout requires users to navigate through various points, seeing only one item at a time.  The Dallas Morning News used this timeline on its JFK page:

Download the code for SIMILE Timeline here.

3. Timeglider

If you’re looking for a jQuery option for creating timelines, you might want to consider Timeglider. From the project’s page:

The timeline can be zoomed by dragging the vertical slider at right: up for zooming in (less time shown) and down for zooming out (more time shown). The mousewheel also works as a zoom controller. Any white area on the “stage” of the timeline can be dragged left and right, as can the blue “ruler” which marks out different units of time. Clicking on an event brings up a small modal window with a description and links if any are provided in the data.

This timeline was designed to work on tablets and other touch-enabled devices. I couldn’t find any examples of a news organization using this tool.

Don’t want to code? There’s always Vuvox.

There are other free options out there for creating a timeline if you have no coding experience or technical resources at your disposal. I mentioned Dipity at the beginning of this post. If you use a free account, you’re limited to only three timelines, which isn’t sustainable for a news organization. If you want to shell out $5/month, you get five timelines, which still isn’t very reasonable.

Vuvuox is another oldie-but-goodie drag ‘n drop tool for creating panorama-style sliders. Although not natively a timleine tool, it can easily be adapted to create timeline-like displays for information. As far as I can tell, Vuvox is still free with the ability to create an unlimited number of projects. It’s not fully-customizable, but you can work around its limitations by uploading custom images. See an example of a timeline I created for CoPress below.

We still have a long way to go with timelines

With the exception of Vuvox, which wasn’t even meant for timelines, all of the more traditional options listed above are really rather boring in terms of the way people share and consume content. The idea of a timeline that is literally a line with a few points on it is, frankly, boring. I really love what The University of Washington put together on its 150th Anniversary: A timeline of memories over the span of 15 decades.

This isn’t your standard left-to-right, click-to-see-points-in-time kind of timeline. It scrolls vertically, displaying tiles with images. On the left side, users can choose to filter by theme or department. The implementation is beautiful and shareable — a format I would love to see a news organization take on.  Of course, this timeline probably took a lot of time by a third-party design vendor (not ideal for a newsroom on a deadline), but investing the time to build one initially could pay off for resusability in the future.

HTML5 also poses many options for creating beautiful, useable, shareable timelines. If you look at marketing content like Nike’s Better World site shows how a narrative can be told through a unique, modern display.

What are the best timelines you’ve seen? Discuss in the comments.

Posted by Lauren Rabaino on December 16, 2011.

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Categories: tools

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Bloggers cannot enjoy journalists' legal privileges, says judge - Roy Greenslade

Bloggers cannot enjoy journalists' legal privileges, says judge

A blogger in the US state of Oregon has just been ordered by a court to pay $2.5m (£1.6m) to an investment company because of a defamatory posting.

Crystal Cox was sued by investment firm Obsidian Finance Group for writing several blog posts that were highly critical of the firm and its co-founder Kevin Padrick.

She argued in Portland district court that she should have the same legal protection that is afforded to journalists.

She said her posts - a mixture of facts, commentary and opinion - were based on material supplied by a whistle-blower whose identity she refused to reveal.

She considered herself to be a journalist and should therefore be entitled to protection under media shield laws that allow journalists not to identify their sources.

But Oregon's shield law doesn't explicitly include bloggers in its list.

The judge's opinion is fascinating because it suggests there is one law for journalists and another for citizens. He said:

"Although [the] defendant is a self-proclaimed 'investigative blogger' and defines herself as 'media,' the record fails to show that she is affiliated with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system. Thus, she is not entitled to the protections of the law."

That sounds like it's going to require a supreme court hearing at some stage. Cox, who runs several sites, including one called obsidianfinancesucks.com, plans to appeal, rightly saying: "This should matter to everyone who writes on the internet."

Though Obsidian sued over several postings, the judge found against Cox on only one item, ruling that it was defamatory precisely because it was more factual in tone than her other posts.

Sources: Seattle Weekly/econsultancy

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30 Christmas gifts for journalists - 10,000Words

30 Holiday Gifts For Journalists


Holidays are just around the corner and we know most of you who read this blog have a journalist or two in your life that you’ll be shopping for. Here are the recommendations from our entire 10,000 Words crew for journalistic, geeky, fun gifts. We also have holiday gift guides from 2008 and 2009 that are still relevant. Anything we missed? Add your favorites and must-haves in the comments. continued…


New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.



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Flipboard Launches Long-Anticipated iPhone App - 10,000Words

Flipboard Launches Long-Anticipated iPhone App

Flipboard, the social magazine iPad app that organizes sectionalized content (like “News,” “Technology” and “Food”) and social network updates into a sleek, unified interface, launched its highly anticipated iPhone app today. With the roll out, Flipboard announced a new feature called Cover Stories, which, according to CNET, “learns from a reader’s interactions with the content and helps them quickly catch up with some of the most interesting news, updates, and photos being shared at that moment.”


The new app easily translates the intuitive gestures that make the iPad version so enjoyable into those friendlier for the small screen: instead of horizontally swiping to turn pages, the iPhone version allows vertical swiping, which makes it much easier to navigate on the smaller device.


continued…


New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.



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Lonely Planet's Mobile Travel Startup Launches, With Content From Rivals - paidContentUK

Lonely Planet's Mobile Travel Startup Launches, With Content From Rivals



Matt Goldberg

Lonely Planet’s new San Francisco-based mobile startup has gone live with its flagship mobile travel guide app Wenzani, which paidContent first reported about in September.

Wenzani is an iPhone app comprising restaurant, going-on, activity and other recommendations from content partners, as well as an ability to tap users’ social contacts for the same kinds of info.

That content comes from Lonely Planet and its owner BBC Worldwide’s BBC Travel, plus third parties Time (NYSE: TWX) Out, Frommer’s Travel and Wcities. “Although usually considered competitors, we have joined forces to do something unique and give our users the most comprehensive guide possible,” according to Wenzani’s blog.

BBC Worldwide tells paidContent: “Lonely Planet is the only equity holder. Time Out, Frommer’s Travel and Wcities are content partners only.

“Development has wholly funded by Lonely Planet and there hasn’t been any investment from outside Lonely Planet.”

The firm is led by Textingly online SMS startup founder Jenny Fielding as CEO. In September, Lonely Planet CEO Matt Goldberg said he would attract executive talent to Wenzani using equity, in startup fashion.

BBCWW did not confirm whether those publishers are providing content on a commercial basis. “With today’s launch, we’ve offered the publishers an opportunity to get their brand and content in front or an array of consumers,” a spokesperson said. “Later iterations will also include monetization opportunities, from which our partners will share revenue.”

To minimise the effect of international conversion to and from the high dollar in Australia where it is based, Lonely Planet recently relocated its web team out of Australia to sit alongside BBC Worldwide in London, has its mobile team in Oakland, California, but retains its print publishing business Down Under.

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You Can’t Create Good Online Communities Without Taking Risks - 10,000words

You Can’t Create Good Online Communities Without Taking Risks

A time will come when you’re managing an online community or a Facebook Fan Page when you feel the urge to make a big splash about something, in an effort to generate activity.


Sometimes it will come as a result of something that has happened, or is happening, in the community. Other times, it will be an attempt to imitate something you saw in a different community or Facebook Fan Page. You think it will work for your community, too.


As with most risks, when it pays off, it pays off big time. But when it doesn’t, it fails spectacularly.


As a community manager, you can’t be afraid of risk.


Just be selective with when you go to make a big splash. Trying to create too much change in a short period of time could have the opposite effect and drive your community members away because they’re having trouble getting a handle on how to participate.


New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.



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