Re: [-empyre-] Where You Are

["ricardo miranda zuniga" <ricardo@ambriente.com>]

Hello Everyone,
A recent announcement by Sal Randolph of her new experiment "Where You
Are" seems much too appropriate to the topic of discussion to not pass
along the link and brief description:
http://whereyouare.org/
"Whereyouare is an experiment in the collective documentation of
neighborhoods... Everyone is invited to participate by documenting any
neighborhood they love...  The project harnesses the power of folksonomy
tags from a range of sites that host and organize content of different
kinds (flickr for photos, vimeo for video, delicious for links, etc.)."

I love the concept of this experiment and it's use of current popular
web tools too establish an open documentation of neighborhoods that
anyone who is willing to establish an account with flickr or vimeo or
delicious or opsound... can participate in.

At the moment, Williamsburg seems to have the most stuff, since it is
the neighborhood that Sal lives in and can facilitate getting initial
contributors to join.

If people contribute worthwhile content and build an engaging
representation or documentation, it could be a really great use of
folksonomy.  However at the moment, Williamsburg includes a couple of
videos of an awning flapping against wind and some pigeons hanging out
on a street - the sort of content that leads me to question whether or
not this is just more unnecessary stuff online, time will tell.

It will also be interesting to see how widely the site is passed along
and if neighborhoods of non-Western or "underdeveloped" countries are
added to the site.
ricardo