Looking for a quick and dirty way to create interactive timelines?

Dipity is a website designed exclusively for digital timeline creation, and it’s FREE.

Many news organizations are already using Dipity, including The Washington Post. Check out how washingtonpost.com used Dipity to chronicle the experiences of a family that went on a seven-year sailing trip around the world.

In addition to individual event entries, Dipity also allows you to populate your timeline with data already on other sites, including photos, videos and blog posts. The services linked for importing include Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

Here’s a quick example I put together by incorporating the RSS feed for this blog. See it in full on the Dipity site here.

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One of Dipity’s best features is the “Search” function, which allows you to enter a particular keyword or term and collect and insert related data from Twitter, YouTube, Flickr or Google News. Dipity will automatically update the timeline as more info pops up that includes your search term.

Searching your own name or organization, for example, could be a great way to track what Dipity refers to as  your “digital footprint” over time.

Once you join, you can create timelines on Dipity for FREE, but even embedded, they come with a Dipity stamp in the corner.

If you want to get rid of the Dipity branding altogether, you’ll have to buy Dipity Premium. Plans start at $5 a month and go up to about $100 a month for the Pro version.