Lifehaps: The Social Networking Timeline

A new startup is trying to take social networking up a notch by providing a graphical timeline of your life.

Lifehaps gives you the ability to plot out all your life’s events — ranging from your birth to that concert you’re seeing next month — and then share the data with friends. It’s kind of like a massive, lifelong calendar that’s open to your online community. In addition to the major life happenings, you can easily include random outings or upcoming weekend plans so your friends can coordinate and link up with you.

The site offers its services for free, though it does indicate certain “premium features” in the works for the future. These include customizable theme options, charting and graphing capabilities, and custom event categories.

We couldn’t find much about the creators or the company on the site. WhoIs records, though, show the domain pointing to Knowtes.com — an interactive online flashcard service for students, also in beta. The Lifehaps name is registered to Shaun Halberstadt, who holds the copyright for Knowtes — so it seems a likely conclusion that he’s the brain behind both operations.

Our vote: The idea behind Lifehaps is actually pretty cool and could be a nice graphical addition to social networking. The timeline format is fun to play around with, though the interface can be a bit slow and cumbersome at times. Lifehaps would have a lot more value as a feature within an existing social network. The technology and the concept are solid, but the likelihood of getting all your friends to create accounts and build timelines on an independent service — then continue to maintain them and interact with others — isn’t high. If Lifehaps were to eventually join forces or partner up with another service — say, Facebook or FriendFeed — it could see wider adoption and a stronger shot at success.