Where You Are
September 15, 2005
A new experiment by Sal Randolph – “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.