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Have you ever tried looking backwards in Twitter or Facebook? It’s not easy. There was that funny conversation, link, or photo that one time that you suddenly feet the need to take a look at again, but when you tried to find it, you were faced with over a year’s worth of scrolling, waiting, scrolling, waiting, and then yet more scrolling? That’s one of the downsides of a world run by micro-updates — there are a lot of them. You could try using the built in search, or even Google, but it’ll probably be a chilly day down south before you find that elusive memory. That’s where Memolane comes in.
Memolane is a new web app that allows you to view content from multiple social media services in a single timeline that is easy on the eyes, and easy to search through. The timeline is scrollable and broken down into days, with the tweets, photos, updates, et al, that you posted online each day listed vertically in expandable memo bubbles. You can connect Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Last.fm, Trip.it, and more — and you can even add in RSS feeds to pull in custom content. I found that I was able to access Twitter updates as far back as February 2010, and Facebook updates, especially photos, all the way back to 2007. Clicking the timeline bar on the bottom of the window made for quick trips to the dates I was looking for, and the search is actually pretty powerful, so long as you don’t enter hash-tag symbols (#).
An easy way to find your old online memories isn’t all that Memolane is good for, however. You can also embed lanes into web pages (see it in action below), and connect with friends to create stories together around shared experiences. It’s a bit like an online scrapbook, really. In fact, Memolane may be adding a print aspect that will allow for real scrapbooking — digital life making it full circle back to the real world.
I like Memolane. It’s easy to set up and use, it allows me to find things that I may have never found otherwise, and it has per-memo and per-service privacy settings that make the sharing bit worry-free. I did find that, the further I went back in time, the more sparse the updates became, but it is entirely possible that that has more to do with the connected services than with Memolane itself. Also, it’s free — and awesome. That’s a good combination in my books.
http://vimeo.com/16474788What do you think of Memolane?
Chase Mann says:
Thanks Bobby,
This is excellent for my social media services clients!
April 30, 2011 — 2:28 pm
Bobby Travis says:
My pleasure, Chase. It definitely has a lot of potential!
April 30, 2011 — 2:44 pm
Bryann says:
Gotta agree with Chase. Wow, I’m already thinking about all the snappy and practical uses for Memolane. For nonprofits I work with, if they’re already active with their online communities, they can use Memolane to get a bird’s eye view of what happened during, say, an advocacy campaign. Good for intel-gathering and training staff.
May 1, 2011 — 12:59 pm
Chase Mann says:
Exactly Bryann, I just used it myself to track down a photo that someone had shared with me … so much easier than scrolling through the twitter feed.
Easier to me for this particular function than HootSuite, TweetDeck or Twitter itself.
May 1, 2011 — 1:45 pm
Bobby Travis says:
Definitely! This made my life, and will likely make clients’lives, a lot easier as well.
May 1, 2011 — 8:20 pm