Info 202 Fall 2011

Historypin, a collaboration between Google and the nonprofit We Are What We Do, is a dedicated space for people to build collections of photos and narratives throughout history. Photos are uploaded, credited, and contextualized (on the right side) and give different (or more flattened) perspectives of historical events, eras, and people. The site leverages a Google Maps API to crowdsource and present location data. This project provides a commons of sorts and combines features (from sites like Flickr, Layar, Memory Miner) and allows millions of people to share content and contribute to the depth and breadth of the story of human history.

One of the goals of the project is to "democratize history" by providing a platform for collections and tours where users can share personal histories and contextualize them with other crowdsourced photographs. Anyone can contribute for free, and over 50,000 images were uploaded in just the first few months after the launch. There is potential for infinite images and narratives to be uploaded to the site, which is continually being organized and reorganized by users. While it's a far cry from the semantic web of tomorrow, it does have promising growth potential in the area of linked data and the potential to create more standardize descriptors and vocabularies for users. My favorite discovery so far is the Berenice Abbott Collection - I love her work.


Article: A New Tool for Digital Storytelling