Back in March the Knight Lab partnered with Medill Associate Professor Zach Wise (a former staffer at The New York Times and part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the Las Vegas Sun) to launch a product that was then known as Timeline.
In the 2.5 months since the launch, Timeline has grown and adapted to user needs and the marketplace. For starters, the name changed from Timeline to Timeline JS – a move that makes the product easier to market and gives a nod to the technology’s JavaScript roots.
In addition to the name change, Professor Wise has also added significant functionality to the technology. Journalists can now (or will very soon be able to) include content from Wikipedia, Instagram, and Storify with the same ease as they can with the original media sources: Twitter, Flickr, Google Maps, YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and SoundCloud. The number of languages that Timeline JS supports has more than doubled since the launch. And Timeline JS groups on GitHub and Google promote discussion, product support and allow users to share their work. A Sao Paulo developer has created a WordPress plug-in, which makes using Timeline JS with WordPress even easier.
But the real success of Timeline JS has been the speed and variety of sites that have picked up the technology and used it to tell stories. In just under three months, Timeline JS has been picked up by news organizations from Austria to Japan and from Argentina to Canada.
It has been used primarily as a tool for journalists and news organizations that have used it to cover some of the biggest stories of the last several months, including the hunt for suspected murderer Luka Magnotta and the disappearance of Susan Powell. But it’s also been used by advocacy groups and reimagined by designers as a tool for presenting creative portfolios.
In Chicago, Meating Place Magazine (a B2B publication for the meat industry) used Timeline JS to document the history and recent controversy over “pink slime.” City Mag used it to give readers a history of NATO and the Chicago food scene. The Wilmette Patch documented stolen lottery tickets.
All told, Timeline JS has been deployed at least 70 times.
Here are just a few examples Timeline JS in use:
- Le Monde – French Presidential Contest
- Vancouver Sun – Luka Magnotta murder
- Salt Lake Tribune – Susan Powell’s disappearance
- Daily Freeman – Levon Helm’s life
- Die Burger (South Africa) – Amateur boxer’s first fight
- The Atavist – A father’s hunt for his daughter’s killer
- San Antonio Express News – Money Laundering
- Spokane Spokesman Review – Kentucky Derby hats
- AM1500 – General Services Administration spending scandal
- Xieziben
- NewsGrapher – Bob Dylan
- Drone Journalism Lab – The Drone Countdown
- Asian Comic Site – Akira Toriyama’s World
- La Fabrique Du Reel – Prometheus Marketing Campaign
- Bay Bio – A History of Biotechnology
- HexRun – Chinese Mobile App Company
- Music Tech Hub – History of Electronic Music
- Matt Is Chro – Yayoi Kusama Timeline
- Brafton Ad Agency – History of Google’s Panda Project
- DesignTuto.com – A History of Facebook Timeline
- The Groton Line – A History of the Groton Fire Station
- Small Oranges – Biography of English director Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman
- Gieglas.com – APOEL Champions League 2011- 2012
- Accreds.fr – L’actualite quotidienne des festivals de cinema
- China Labor Bulletin – Protesting workers imprisoned
- Wort Newspaper (Luxemburg) – Jean-Claude Juncker and Nicolas Sarkozy
- Magasin-General.fr – The Case of Tarnac
- Sectiesjaak.nl – History of Section Sjaak
- India Timeline – Dynasties of India
- Arizona Daily Star – Disappearance of Isabel Celis
- La Tercera – Terrorist Bomb Case
- International Crisis Group – Post war Sri Lanka
- Raghulj.com – History of Facebook
- Moneyocracy – Campaign finance law and Citizens United
- Tutorialize – Timeline reimagined as a way to present a creative portfolio
- Back to Ghana – A history of Ghana aimed at luring citizens back to the country
- International Crisis Group – Post war Sri Lanka
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