I tried a few quick searches and it's fun - I heard of this from Seth Godin's blog @ [sethgodin.typepad.com]

I wonder what criteria they use to show the most popular videos which get the bigger bubbles on top? Some videos which I would rank higher are shown as blips on the bottom. It appears to not just be views and seems to be related to YouTube's own relevance rankings (which, sadly, I've noticed have been stale on numerous occasions).

I especially liked the "chocolate rain" search, because it shows the crop of parodies that popped up soon afterwards.

Torley

Forgot to mention that the TinyUrl Creator is a FF extension.

Lazarus

@Torley: Thanks for mentioning the Chocolate Rain search. I love the Chocolate Rain version by Chad Vader

+ Watch video

Just FYI for everyone: Its seems that Microsoft is blocking youtube links on MSN Messenger (coincidently with the launch of their Messenger Tv) so if you find something on TimeTube and want to share it, you'll have to find a different IM client or tinyurl it or something. Adam wrote an article on how to use the TinyUrl creator earlier, too [lifehacker.com]

On a side note: I never noticed before that if you link a video in comments, it gives you a +Watch Video link and photo. Cool! Is this something new also with the photo linking?

Lazarus

I can't believe Microsoft is doing that.

That shouldn't be legal.

malnourish

Hmmm...I guess it works by the date the video was uploaded, which doesn't make much sense. I tried a timeline on "Charlatans UK" hoping I would get videos in the order the songs were released. Instead I get a mixed bag of new and 10 year-old songs over a span of 2 years :/

OX4

By the way, I think MSN has ceased blocking links to major sites now. I can't help but feel it was the work of a disgruntled employee. Steve Balmer can't be THAT dumb.

ICEBreaker

I think the article missed one of the most important uses of a timeline search. It really helps find information of emergent events before they became major phenomenons.

In other words, it's useful for finding information that lies on the left tail of the time-frequency distribution curve.

e.g. Looking for reports of a new virus / potential financial bubble / suspected foul play, etc. before it became a national or global issue.

In the case of TimeTube and YouTube, it's useful for finding clips of public figures before they became famous. Oh, I can see political campaign groups having a field day with this baby - digging up the dirt on their opponents.

ICEBreaker

@ICEBreaker: They werent blocking major sites. They block by keyword for anti-phishing. I agree though, I think someone thought it would be funny to add *.youtube.com to the list.

Lazarus

I don't believe in the Time Cube.

GageCeler

This search is a pretty good one as we can view some of the old videos we haven`t seen and even the seacrh results are convinent to drag on the screen.

vidyadhariiit

@ICEBreaker: first search is going to be barack obama

geoffcbassett