Timehop is a new web service that helps you relive what you did exactly one year from today. It is something like a social time machine and a playback app for your life. Timehop connects to your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Foursquare account and uncovers what they posted on these social networks exactly a year to the date today. It captures the moment and sends it across as a reminder using email to the subscriber’s inbox. The blast from the past can serve many a purpose to your present. Here are some examples that struck my mind instantly:
You can use it as a reality check if you had made a resolution and forgot to follow it up.You can revisit a place you haven’t gone to in a while.You can re-discover a fleeting moment of fun which got submerged under time.
Nostalgia does funny things and Timehop hopes to be a catalyst for some of it through the digital lives we spend on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Foursquare. Sign-up with Timehop using your Facebook account and then integrate the other services if you use them. There’s nothing much beyond it…no extra settings to configure or any personal information to dish out as Timehop probably takes it all from Facebook. Timehop is ultra-simple.
The Potential of Timehop alongside Our Social Profiles
Timehop is interesting because it seems to be a zero-effort digital diary. It captures our thoughts and brings it back to us in a year’s time. You don’t have to pen it down deliberately…you are already doing it in the social profiles you maintain. More importantly, Timehop integrates into the four social networks (with more expected in the future) and brings all our miscellaneous activities onto a common platform. The email reminder is like a daily digest on our past lives. But with Facebook’s own Timeline now standard fare, how does Timehop hope to stand on its own two legs? Well, it has “four” legs to stand on. More could join the current gang of Twitter, Instagram, and Foursquare. Timehop mines digital data that we leave behind and enhances their value by sending it to us as email reminders. Log into Timehop, go back to where you were a year ago and let those memories rejuvenate your life!
