xtimeline blog

We want to apologize for the problems that you have been experiencing on the website since our transition to the new version in the last week.  We tried our best to test for problems ahead of time, but unfortunately, we did not catch every issue.

In this new version, we made a number of improvements:
1) Rewrite our backend to make the site run faster
2) Shift the site to a new, better server, also to help speed up the site
3) Change “Groups” to “Lists” to make it easier to use

The good news, we believe, is that the site is more stable now.  There are a few issues which we are still resolving, but we think the site is close to the stage where we wish we had been when we did the transition.

We are a small team, and we are doing our best to maintain the site, and continue with some modest improvements.  We do read your feedback, and appreciate the comments.  We’ll continue to make changes you request as quickly as we can.

Thank you for your patience.

Best regards,
The xtimeline team

The new site is up and running!  However, the transfer process for all the photos and media is not done yet, and will take another several hours.  Rest assured nothing has been lost.  We will let you know when everything is done, and provide a more detailed update on the different changes that were made in this new version.

Thanks for your patience.

Update:  We are still handling the picture transfer to the new server.  We apologize about the delay.  We appreciate your patience.

Update 2: May 11 17:30 PST
We are still fixing some bugs in the new site.
Many, but not all, of the pictures have been transferred.
In addition, the registration process has an error which will be fixed very shortly.
Again, we apologize for the delay and we hope to get the site fully working in the next few hours.

Update 3: May 11 20:30 PST
Most of the major bugs have been fixed.
URL exceptions no longer cause the database to reset.
Registration is working.
Creating new timelines and events is working.
We have a fix for pictures, but this will be revised once more.
Again, we sincerely hope to get through the last of these issues very shortly.

Update 4: May 13 06:00 PST
We believe most issues have now been fixed. It has been a painful process, and many problems we did not catch during our previous testing. It has been a tough period, and we hope that our users were not disrupted too greatly by the experience.
There are some remaining issues which we know about, including some timelines are still missing photos. In addition, many timelines have had their permanent URLs changed. We will do our best to fix all of these problems as soon as possible.
Thank you again for your patience, and please continue to send any reports of problems to us at info at xtimeline.com or through our feedback system.

This Friday evening, May 8, 2009, we’ll be taking the xtimeline website offline starting approximately 7:00 PM PST for approximately one day. We are rolling out a new version of the website to improve its performance. There will be some changes to the appearance of the website, but most of the work has been done on the backend. We are confident the update will improve the speed and stability of xtimeline. We also believe this version of the site will provide a better foundation for us to make future improvements.

Thank you for your patience as we make the migration, and for your patience with xtimeline’s developments generally. We’ll let you know when the site is back up!

This Saturday, April 4, 2009, we’ll be taking the xtimeline website offline from approximately midnight to about 8pm PST. We’re rolling out a new version of the website to improve its performance.

Thank you for your patience as we make the migration. We’ll let you know when the site is back up.

Update: Unfortunately, we have not put the new version of the site up. We discovered some areas that were in need of further improvement. We are very disappointed to say that there will be a further delay. We hope you’ll be patient. Thanks, and sorry about the wait.

The xtimeline server went down on Wednesday afternoon (PST). No data was lost, but the site was unreachable for several hours. The problem has been fixed. We apologize for any inconvenience it caused you. We recognize that xtimeline has become a tool that people depend on, and we are working hard to improve our service to meet those expectations.

One improvement you will soon see is a new version of xtimeline. Changes are modest from a surface perspective, but the backend has been improved significantly.

Here’s what to expect:
* The site will be faster
* The site will be more stable
* Changes in groups
* No new timeline, yet

We hope the new version will be ready as early as next week. Given the economic environment, we haven’t been able to produce this new version as fast as we would like.

Thank you again to all the xtimeline users who wrote to us alerting us to issues on the site. Your emails and feedback really help us to know what we have to work on. We’ll be asking for more of your feedback soon in the coming week.

Thanks for your patience,

The xtimeline Team

Timelines are a great way to quickly learn about a topic.  Here are the top 10 most popular timelines on the xtimeline website in 2008.  From the list, we get a sense of what some of the big events were in 2008, and other life and entertainment topics that remain important or interesting to our xtimeline community:

1. History of Video Games
2. Life of Barack Obama
3. Google: Company History and Milestones
4. Rafael Garcia-Herreros
5. Pregnancy Timeline
6. Apple, Inc.
7. Adolf Hitler
8. Britney Spears
9. Olympic Games
10.John McCain

Dear xtimeline users,

The team that created xtimeline.com is proud to bring you www.famento.com, a website where you can record the history of your family, and the story of your life.

What can you do on Famento?

1. Tell your stories

Do you ever wish you knew more about your parents or grandparents? Do you want to stay connected with friends? Famento is a way to record your stories so that your friends and family can know you and their ancestors better.

2. Create timelines of your life

Organize your life stories, and create a timeline about your life. Famento is a private network, so you can share this with only the people you want.

3. Share photos, videos and files

Share your photos of family gatherings, vacations, babies, weddings and other events. Make sure important family photos can never be lost.

4. Create an online tribute for loved ones

Remember loved ones that have passed away. Create a profile, upload photos, and have friends and family submit their memories. You can make this a public tribute or keep it private.

Join us on Famento to start recording your life story and your family’s history today. No matter how far apart you live from each other, or how busy your lives are, you can stay close to the people you care about through Famento.

The Famento team

www.famento.com – Your Family History
www.xtimeline.com – Timeline 2.0

We are excited to announce a new version of our timeline widget and website!

Here are the highlights:

1) A new and improved timeline widget

• Enhanced performance – The timeline widget loads up much faster, and can handle large numbers of events.

• Improved embedding – It’s now easier to embed the timeline widget on your blog, social networking profile, or website. Customize the size of the widget, and then copy the embed code to start sharing timelines that you like or have created.

• Different timeline view – You can view our timeline in the traditional View or in a new “card” format. The “card” view shows the picture and allows you to view the timeline as a continuous series of events.

2) Easier to collaborate

• Public Editing Option – Now you have the option to make your timelines publicly editable. This means you can allow all xtimeline users to contribute events and edit your timelines. With the easy wiki-like edit history feature, you can roll back to previous versions as desired.

3) Easier to discover new timelines

• Site Redesign – We have been reorganizing the site since January, and we think the new layout will make it easier for you to find interesting timelines. We’ve made our Explore page the main page to find new timelines — you can now sort by category, language, views, and time and more. We’ve also simplified our home page to make it clearer.

We’re really excited about the new website, and we hope it is getting easier to create and explore timelines. We’re always working on further improvements, so let us know what you think of this new release.

And please help us spread the word about xtimeline!

The xtimeline team

Some of our recent favorite timelines:

The History of Oil
The TV Series “Lost”
The History of the Bra

We’re excited to announce some changes on the xtimeline site! Some of you may have noticed that we’ve been experimenting with some changes in functionality and layout. While we will continue to make changes and improve the site, we think it’s worth explaining what has changed in this version and why. More to come in subsequent posts. We’ve also updated our Help and Tour pages to reflect these changes.

In the end, we hope these changes will make it easier for you to create, share and discuss timelines. (If they’re not — please let us know through the feedback button or post it in our forums!)

Thanks,

The xtimeline team

(Quick note: We brought our forums back because it seemed like our feedback group wasn’t as popular.)

We’re excited to open xtimeline.com to the public after many months of development!   We hope you’ll enjoy exploring timelines on our site, and creating timelines on topics that you’re passionate about.  Making a timeline is a unique way of expressing yourself and sharing your knowledge with the world.  

We know our site is a bit unusual, so we wanted to answer some questions:

Why timelines?
We think modern society is awash in information, and we need better ways to organize it.  Timelines are a great way to visualize how a series of events are related.  Thanks to computers, timelines are no longer static and paper-bound — our timelines are interactive and can contain pictures, videos, music, and links to more information.  

Why make a site just for timelines?
Making a dynamic timeline widget isn’t enough — you need to have a place to create, store, and share them with other people.  We like to think of xtimeline as a cross between wikipedia andyoutube.  Like all user-generated content sites, you can upload your own thoughts, media, and opinions.  Eventually, we think some timelines will become well-known enough to be online references.

Thanks again for checking out the xtimeline site.  We have a lot of ideas about how the site can evolve.  But most of all, we’d love to hear your ideas and suggestions.

Have fun exploring and creating,

Lauren and Kevin
Founders
xtimeline.com