Dipity is an online timeline generator website (I recently also reviewed TimelineJS) that lets you create visually engaging and interactive digital timelines for free. You can create timelines using text, images, videos, etc. Once you create a timeline, you can share it on various social networks. The best part is that Dipity lets you create timelines around topics, that other people can follow, and even contribute to it. So, it is essentially a collaborative timeline maker.
Dipity also acts as a platform where you can organize your web content by date and time and broadcast your story. With many useful back end tools and custom options, it lets your timeline speak for you!
How to Create a Digital Timeline Using Dipity
In a way, DIpity is like a social community where you can share your story! So, if you have a topic to share, simply create a personalized timeline on Dipity. You need to create a free account to begin with. Just click on the “Join Dipity” button on the top right corner of the main page. Submit you name and email address, create username and password, and you are good to go! You can also sign in using your Facebook username and password.
Also see: Timeline: View and Navigate Events on a Timeline
This is how my Dashboard looks like when I signed in for the first time:
Now, let’s go through the process of creating a timeline in Dipity.
Step 1: Once you are in the Dashboard, click on the “Get Started” button to create your first digital timeline. Fill in the self-explanatory form; add topic title, its description, select category, and set time zone. Once all the required information are given, click “Continue to Add Events”.
Permissions Setting:
The Permissions setting option lets you control the privacy of your timeline. You can set it to Private, where only you will be able to see and edit the timeline. If you select the Anyone radio button, you can set conditions whether or not a person can view, edit or contribute to your timeline.
You can apply the same conditions for the people following you, or those you follow. You can add e-mail addresses of certain people that you want to give access to your timeline. In short, Dipity gives you proprietary control over your timelines.
Step 2: The next window will take you to another form where you will add individual events to your timeline. Besides submitting obvious details like event title, date, description, etc., you can also upload an image or insert image URLs, link to the source site, add location and video URL.
Step 3: Once you are done adding the events, click on “Continue”. The next page will take you to the Advanced Settings section of the timeline. Here, you can set Zoom level, Center on Date, add tags, and choose themes for your timeline. After giving your finishing touch, click on “Save and View Timeline” to complete the task.
Note: You can add only three timelines if you are using a free account.
Thus, you can create a digital timeline in just three simple steps! You can also view your timeline as Flipbook or List. If you want to add new events, you can directly do it from your timeline. Just click on the Yellow Button “Add an Event”. This is how my Dipity timeline looks like:
You can embed your timeline on your website or blog. Or, you can share it on major social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. You can also connect to sites Flicker, Google, Twitter, WordPress, and YouTube. Dipity will fetch the latest stories, images, videos and links from these sites, that you can include in your timeline! How cool is that!
Conclusion
Dipity is a really nice tool for creating digital timelines. The website has a very intuitive and user-friendly interface. The well design interface lets you navigate through the pages with ease and lets you create personalize timelines which are visually narrative. Moreover, additions of features like event sourcing tool and privacy settings sets it apart from other timeline creation tools. However, I personally felt that only three timelines for a free account was a bit low. You can upgrade to the premium account for unlimited timeline creation, and some other additional features.