Tline is a new tool for creating interactive timelines that brings together publishers and advertisers. The timelines include sponsored advertisements and can be shared on social media or embedded on a site. Publishers have control over which ads are displayed on their timelines and receive a 50 percent share of the revenue.
Reporting by Reuben Stern and Rayna Sims
For more information:
- Tline is an Israeli startup founded in 2015. When the company started, it was known as Crayze Media and “had a more general focus on adtech and e-commerce before stumbling upon the timeline idea,” according to GeekTime. They have since raised $500K.
- According to Tline co-founder and CEO Avishay Ovadia, the idea for Tline was born from the desire for more information. He said he would find himself reading articles online but frustrated by the lack context. “I’m reading about how Snapchat is going to IPO but I don’t have the history of the company,” he wrote.
- Tline has built several timelines of the history of well-known companies such as Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter.
- An advantage for advertisers, Ovadia says, is that Adblock cannot block ads that are at the top of Tline timelines because they are integrated as part of the content.
- Users can create timelines for free using Tline, with options to embed or share on social media.
- While Tline offers a unique option for sponsored timelines, there are several other tools for creating interactive timelines. Tiki-Toki, Timetoast, Timeglider and TimelineJs are just a few.
[Example] A timeline of the Futures Lab’s top 10 stories from 2016, built using Tline:
Rachel Wise is an editor at the Futures Lab at the Reynolds Journalism Institute and co-producer of the weekly Futures Lab video update.