What I'm reading next

The amount of information out there is both exciting and overwhelming.  Here are some sites I'm going to start exploring now:

• Locative-Media.org
  
• Medill School's LoJo project  (LoJo = Locative Journalism)
  
• New York Times "Weekend Explorer" walking tours (downloadable .mp3 files focused on neighborhoods or themes in NYC)
  
• MapsAlive (an alternative to ubiquitous Google Maps)

The right direction: Mscape

I'm exploring the Mediascapes software and I'm impressed by it's robust connection to place.  Users can create tours, stories, even games based on a particular place in the world.  For example, there's a game that you can download and play only in the Tower of London.  What a great concept!

The content seems to be largely user-generated.  I can't tell that any media organizations have embraced this particular storytelling medium, though it seems very powerful.

The main limitation seems to be that Mscape is only available for WindowsMobile devices that have GPS capability.  Since the Web site seems to be a HP endeavour, it seems doubtful that Blackberry or iPhone versions are in the works.   I also wonder if the usability is limited by having so much content that can only be used/accessed at a specific location.  

I'd love to read comments from people who use Mscape.  There's seems to be a devoted community of users. 

My favorite thing

This is where we're headed.  

I LOVE that I can read New York Times stories based on their location using Google Earth.  The new map layer was big news when it launched a year ago.  Coverage in  Wired, CNET, and of course Google's own maps blog, LatLong. (The links from the LatLong blog post will take a while to explore, but look extremely relevant to this project.)

Google Earth layers aren't available yet (as far as I can tell) in the iPhone/iPod Touch Maps app, but when they are, this will allow someone standing anywhere in the world to read the latest news (from this one major news source) about the places nearest them.  Looking at my neck of the world in GoogleEarth a few weeks ago, for example, I was surprised to see not one but three stories about Duluth, Minnesota in the Times.  Since I don't comb the NYT Web site every day, I had missed these stories.

And I think this is the key to placecasting...it starts with the map.  My mobile device finds where I am (or I tell it where I'm going) and it's map function shows me the information available about that place.  

Now, what if the information wasn't a news story I have to read, but a radio story, audio tour or personal history relevant to the landscape around me?  My eyes can be in the present while my ears are receiving the context to help me understand what I'm seeing. 

News sites that use maps

More and more news Web sites are using maps in their on-line reporting.  This can work in at least two ways:

Maps specific to a story -- where the scope of the story encompasses many places and it's useful to represent those places, and information about them, on a map.  Here's an example from my own news organization:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2009/04/03_school_districts/

What interests this project more is sites that place stories on a map -- when the story is about a specific geographic place, that location is included in the story's online metadata.  

This allows Web sites to show the scope of their reporting on a map and allows users to select content based on location.  It can also reveal interesting and surprising trends in a given news organization's coverage bias.  Here's a Web only news site that claims to be representing Chicago's neighborhoods better than the city's two main newspapers:

http://www.chicagotalks.org/

I'm going to try to learn more about outside.in, the map provider Chicago Talks uses.

The idea

It's simple. Wherever we are in the world, we should be able to get information tailored to what is around us.

Curious people wonder, "why does my world look like this? why does my world act like this? what was it like before? what's around the next corner?" The confluence of technologies represented by GPS, Google Maps and the iPhone allows us to seek out and find those answers on the spot. No waiting.

So let's create content that helps answer those questions for the places we know best. Let's sort information by location. Let's make connections via proximity.

I live in the audio world where podcasting is revolutionizing radio, music and the media of storytelling. So I propose this next step: Placecasting. Audio tours, news stories, soundclips and real voices tied to the physical space the listener is in now.

Some of this is out there already. This is a place to aggregate and experiment at the same time.

Jeff

Read more about the big picture ideas around placecasting.