Parti Over Here!

F O R D E S C R I P T I O N
O F P A R T I
R E A D B E L O W

My basic concept with this was to extract a few tones / themes I want my project to be about. I chose a tree (with a house in it) because I feel like a lot of homey memories spread from play. Treehouses are an example of a makeshift house with boundless possibilities.

The tear drop with the sky in it represents emotions that I want to convey from these experiences.

The eye is sort literal in the fact that when we experience we use our eyesight, but also metaphorical for our other senses. thought my project will be hard to convey taste, scent, etc. I want to incorporate them (possibly in the installation)

There is a road with an inkwell coming out from behind the tree, which is sort of the long road ahead, able to put it down on paper (the digital story telling portion)

Finally, the fetus inside the heart represents growth. Physically we grow with our places, our time, and our stories. Emotionally and mentally, it all comes from the heart of these experiences , the deep meaning (like the heart of the tree / heart of the experience)

Pushing The Envelope : Mapping Sex In America

Mapping Sex in America is truly the closest thing I have found to what I want to do with my project. The interface, though not very community driven (though I do want community focus is still on storytelling).

The Museum of Sex invites you to participate in its national project,
Mapping Sex in America. Record your personal sex history and become
a part of this ongoing archive chronicling Americans' stories of sexual practice
and the evolution of America's sexual customs.

Mapping Sex in America takes our private stories and allows us to share them in
an environment that encourages our contemplation. What are our boundaries?
Prejudices? What turns us on and what offends us? What are the implications in
terms of sex education, crime prevention, and disease control?

From the mundane to the passionate to the scandalous and everything in between,
these stories have the capacity to captivate us, heal us, and educate us; but perhaps
most importantly they connect us in a colorful world heretofore shrouded by the
conventions of discretion.

I think those paragraphs describe the project very throughoughly, but can be checked out here :
http://www.museumofsex.com/USAmap/

The way they craft their stories, with categories, places, and stories are a close example to what I want to achieve, but without the main focus being sex. I have thought about how to go above this, but I think just the subjct matter alone will go above this. Sex, obviously important, could be a part of the site, but childhood memories, love connections, anything that sparks strong emotions.

Almost like the Daily Me : Personal Editions we did, but maybe even a little less superficial.

I think the look, feel, and interface of the Museum of Sex site is very much what I am looking for in a feel, but wit a little more interface of connection of people. I want the same sort of networking, but I think they really capture the (sexual) feel to a given place, so this remains very interesting to me.

With their map you can get VERRRY close to the street depending if there are a lot of stories etc, so I want to achieve a certain amount of what they did but with much more of a connection of energy and people in a different way.

Pushing The Envelope : Digital Storytelling

I found some stuff on "Digital Storytelling", which sounds very interesting. I want the site to be easy, but also dynamic and creative for people to explore.

Digital Storytelling is the modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling.
Digital stories derive their power by weaving images, music, narrative and voice
together, thereby giving deep dimension and vivid color to characters
situations, experiences, and insights. Tell your story now digitally.
-http://electronicportfolios.com/digistory/

I really want to integrate a social aspect of storytelling, but want people to feel comfortable bearing a little of their soul, which will obviously call for a tight and trustworthy community. I think the digital storytelling portion sounds very interesting, so that stories can be textual, but images, sounds, etc. gives a lot of extra to our senses and sometimes can help us picture us there more.

There are many reasons we tell stories, a lot of the examples in the digital storytelling site above, talk about stories being tied close to family and descendants. I find those aspects very interesting, about a legacy of yourself living on, even after you are gone. Therefore in the respect of digital storytelling.

As far pushing the envelope on digital storytelling I will have to think about some more because it includes all the different medias to tell the stoies you want. I believe in the sense that a location that can be mapped and have multiple digital stories there at once will add something, and i want people to feel connected to this site, but minus the installation i want to do, this is a digital project, and the places we experience are mostly physical, but that may raise some interesting research on digital places as well as concrete places. I think with integration of the three components I want for this (stories, networks, mapping) I will create something new.

Another place on the web that is interesting in storytelling is The Fray. We've talked about this site in a lot of different new media classes of mine, and for a good reason. There are categories of stories, and each story is a form of digital storytelling, that allows you to tell a similar story to at the end, if you navigate through the whole story. This is a way of "burying the button" so people won't post crap, and also give insight on a subject. I would love to incorporate some form of feedback, or discussion of some sort to adopt into my project.

Stories really are the main focus of my project, the other things come inherently from what I want this project to present, so i want to spend a lot of time working with this and trying to push stories a little more.

Pushing The Envelope : More on Frappr/Mapping

I went over this project a little in class beforehand, but this really examplifies the network I wish to create with my project. The greatest thing about Frappr (Friends + Mappter) is the fact that you can create your own maps for different common threads, i.e. - "people who like ace of base", or "people who want to fly". Sort of like groups on myspace, but visual, which is what I like about this project most, how visual it is. We are a very visual society, and seeing where the common threads of your interests are is an important dynamic.

Frappr has profiles and the whole nine yards, the only thing is the design is a little shoddy, and though there are a bunch of people on the server, not nearly as many as myspace/facebook.

That is the one thing I want to avoid in doing my project. Frappr is great, but their goal as stated here:

Ever want to see all your friends on myspace on a map? Well now you can!
Check out our totally sweet myspace map feature. All you do is put in your
myspace url, and we’ll build a map for you! Its that easy

Frappr is about creating a network exactly like myspace, but in a mapping program.

I want my project to push beyond the social networks out there already. I obviously want there to be a social aspect, but I want storytelling to be the main artifact within the network. Maps are a great idea, but I think with design, and posting initial stories i can set the tone above "i like this band" or "i like juice and cocaine". I really want to investigate places we inhabit, visit, experience, and that requires a more serious audience.

http://www.frappr.com/?a=createmap2&mapid=2608490

I found an article that talks about a network of social maps based on the obesity of children. This is NOT the tone I want to set, that we are looking for trends (other than we share some sort of connection to a place), but I found this article interesting and seems to be closer to what i want than a myspace replica.

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,67680,00.html

Either way the point is to find a deep connection of energy in a given place and sharing it with people through different forms of meida and connecting with each other on the same level.

Clustering

Presentation Outline

CAPSTONE PROJECT

1.) Mapping (tools, interface)
2.) Network (tags, story netowork)
3.) Storyteling (deep connections to places)

2 parts

1.) Functional Site
2.) Installation

Zombie Holocaust

This is more of a story that could be used as an example of sort of story for the project in the future. / sort of a flashmobby type deal.

(NOTE, THE ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST PICTURES BELOW ARE JUST FOR SHOW, I HAVE NOT SEEN THIS MOVIE I FOUND IMAGES OF, BUT NOW AM VERY INTERESTED, SINCE ZOMBIES TAKE UP 8% OF THE LOVE IN MY HEART)

I came back tonight around 8:30 to play some trivial pursuit, then some friends left. One of my neighbors / friends came back with a few other friends and we were just hanging out. Later we decided to play hide and seek in the dark, but step it up by acting like zombies. We ended up calling it zombie holocaust where theres of the game (though changed a few times) eventually became



1.) 1 person seeks for the "dead" person holding the flashlight artifact
2.) 1 person is a slow zombie
3.) 1 person is a fast zombie



the person was to make their way through the place I live, finding the flashlight without getting killed by the zombies. This was all in complete dark, and we scared the shit out of each other.

One thing I really want to investigate with this project is energies that the places we live at produce. There was such an energy of fun of also fright tonight. I really think energies and feelings are what places are about, and if a place is fostered with enough of the same energy that it will carry on.

Tonight was a night where I really stopped caring about the other stuff going on in my life with classes and work and whatnot, so I think that is a really important moment to focus on and is a great moment of epiphany of content. Talking with joline really gave me some focus, and i think tonight was the kind of night where there was just a random, mysterious, but energy filled event that lasted until about 20 minutes ago (its now 3:10 am). Meghan Lucas-Maguire was here for the fun too, so in the grand scheme of things, if we both told the story or just one of this, we could tag and be part of the same network.

I was thinking about energies a lot, and there should be a measurement of energy, if an area has lots of anger, it should have a different feel to it than say my story tonight which was almost just childish fun. Hopefully these memories can trigger when thinking about the types of things on the site.

I don't want to overflow with techncal stuff. I want the site to be functional and interactive, but be about the heart and core of the stories, energies, and mysteries of why the places we experience are different and what about them makes them special!

...and zombies rule

Sound Advice

I went in to talk to Joline about a few things (one being capstone) the other day, and i think i got some great perspective on my capstone project (which is good because I have been mostly talking about technical things about the projet).

I want to couple an installation with the site, to get people into the flow of what I want this project to be about. I want the project to investigate the deep meanings and mysteries of the places we inhabit and experience things. Obviously, we all have memories and stories in a house, but what about the spaces outside , the land outside of construction. A tree house is a structure that holds children's memories, and children have a very unique insight into place and time for their minds are not brushed with society too much.I want people to have fun, but also explore the deep meanings of places.

Joline noted the Hobi tribe cannot sell their land ever because when they die they become part of the earth (buried), and then they literally are part of the food that is grown nourishing the future generations. I think these are interesting aspects, and the sorts of things i want to explore such as how the places that surround us are viewed by different people historically and culturally.

I hope to do that by doing an installation that couples the feelings and mysteries these places represent, then do those same portions on the site so people get an idea of how the site feels. This would include some deep things and then some more fun things to balance out the site.

She gave me some other resources to look over, so i hope to start some research in these areas.

http://cordova.asap.um.maine.edu/~blaisj/presence/

Then some books to check out!

**The Spell of the Sensuous, D Abram
**The practice of the Wild, Gary Snyder
**Songlines, Bruce Chatwin
**Dreaming Aboriginal paths

Storytelling

Though there are many things to consider when coming up with this idea that I feel will be a fun and serious project in different respects. Community, Networking, and Storytelling I feel are the main components. I want to focus this post about the storytelling aspect because I feel like it is really the meat and bones of the project.



When I first came up with this idea, I thought a lot about my own experiences. In most ways the first time I thought of this project was the Summer after my first year in college. i was thinking about projects to do for 206 because I am lame and do NMD in summer too. I envisions a crayon map of my hometown where all the places I lived in the town were highlighted (roughly 12 places), and different layers of stories were flowing off the screen. This really sparked my interest of the network of places where I have lived. I feel like there are common themes in the places I myself have lived such as the fact that I always had a cat. I envisioned the how the places i lived linked besides me, and also how those stories link with the people living there now. As part of my capstone, hopefully since I feel like I know basically what I want to do, after I get a sense of what I need, I can start, and then have the website component of the whole thing, and i was also thinking about doing part of an installation of the places I have lived...or maybe even the dorms, so that people can really see that this is going to be about who we are as a society and who we are as people not just facebook profiles.

Storytelling has a lot of important aspects, sites like the fray really innovate the way we tell stories, so i don't want to limit it to blog like postings, I want to feel that people can do what they want to tell their own stories, videos, pictures, text, other things.

I think the fray is a great example of the way stories are told that involve other people. There is a story told in some way or form then people can post their reactions or similar stories to this. The setup I believe is great, and my project shouldn't limit a little white canvas, if people can play around with the map they should be able to feel like posting is a creative process also.

In conclusion, I feel like my own part in this project (all the way back from crayon maps) to the other things I feel are important such as the maps networks and community will pull together for a very successful project, which is part of the reason I want this to break out beyond the walls of the net, and maybe do an installation portion. I also just had the idea of doing an analog project along with it, taking sidewalk chalk and drawing memories wherever, which may be illegal in some parts, but just some preliminary thoughts.

Frappr For Friends

in doing, research, i thought again about a site that has not taken off yet, but I think should/will. the site is Frappr. Like friends mapper. It feels a lot like the project I want to do, but somewhat different. I obviously do not want to rip them off, but think they have some great features.


My favorite is :

My Maps - you can add "maps" like "I love Ace of Base" and it will show on a map with dots all the other people in your network. I think this is a great idea because then you see a visualization of people that have things in common with you. I want to do something like that but less vapid. When you go to maps like "my birthday is this day" you see all the people in your birthday network, which is neat, but I want my project to be a little more intense. Though stories could be about your cat dying when you were 12, tags can include CAT PET DEATH, etc, and see the map of those experiences. Sounds a lot of like, but i hope to tweak it a little more so it feels different.

Frappr has a lot of potential, and I can feel what they are trying to do, their base of people is still small, and i think i will be able to learn the most from this project for my own. frappr is sort of a myspace of a mapping program, where i want the integration of frappr, the fray, myspace, and human creativity. Sites should make people feel like the site was made for them. I don't want my project to just feel like 2 parts fray 1 part myspace 2 parts this and 4 parts that. I want it to feel like a new place on the net for stories and community.



I hope to investigate frappr more and see what details i want to integrate.

VISIT FRAPPR HERE

Mes Amies

I want to really delve into the whole network aspect of this project. In looking around for things I want to do to integrate sense of community, the obvious social networking sites out there are facebook and myspace. I want there to be a large network, but like i said in my last post i don't want it to feel to bloggy. Therefor I want some in between of the two. I think Myspace and facebook can be to fake with the facade that people are great friends and this and that, which isn't a wrong thing, just I want the project to feel less like you are just shopping around for information/friends etc.

BUT, I 100% want to include community into the project. People are telling the stories, so inherently they are part of the stories and networks of people with like stories and such. I feel like it will be easier finding people you have common interests in if two people went through the same experience, or at the same place. Therefore, there should be a portion of the site, where you can have a profile, customizable with "notes". The focus is obviously the experiences, so giving people the ability to blog/bulletin and whatnot like myspace seems overdramatic for purposes, though i do not want to limit myself, so I do want to ask what people think about how much/how little to expand upon.

The things I am thinking about are:
1. Information - name, age, likes, dislikes, that whole spiel
2. maps - recent places you have mapped and tagged , along with people who's maps network with yours
3. customization - people should feel like they have their own little map on the WWW with the site.

I am open to suggestions. what better way to see what people want by asking them. It will be a community abode on the internet, so people should be able to control it, with some minor walls to keep from abusing. Like recently, I have been getting SPAM friends (not even like people wanting to see naked pictures of me, just advertisement friends), which is a problem, so it is a good thing I still have my "design for community book" because i think reading over some sections in that will help me determine the level I want to achieve.

Modifying, Deleting and Realization

The main point of this project is to intimately connect people and places. I feel as if some people may want to share things that they do not feel comfortable with, so i should add some kind filter where a persons details can be excluded.

But, i also do not want people to use misuse it in the sense of spam. "Misuse" in the sense of using mapping for different purposes I don't so much mind because I think people should be serious, but have serious fun too! Therefore hopefully within the filtering system you will be able to get exactly what you want, because the project will rely on experiences, memories, stories, (with pics etc), so people should have fun.

today, i was thinking about the kind of "functions" the site would offer. I want there to be a tool palette where people can draw in the area of the their stories, then tag them, but I was thinking about modifying most of all. I think once an experience is set, that unless there are some errors, that modifying it defeats the purpose. telling a story, then feeling bad and then redoing it seems weird because though its about networking and community and yourself it's about creating the future's history (and history also - if i went to bar harbor when i was 8 to the zoo, and got bit by a fox, that could be just as valid as last night)

I also want to avoid this feeling too Bloggy. though i think blogs are great, (LIKE THIS ONE!) I feel as if the intention of my project is different than just Blogging. I understand blogs are experiences, and you can now tag blogs, but blogs also have a certain connotation, that i wouldn't mind having a slice of, but not the whole project. blogs exists already, and maps exists already, i want to do more than just combine them though, I want to create a community, network, and place feel like they can come daily to share parts of their minds with each other.

Therefore, functions is what this post is about. function of the site as in purpose, then of course functions that should be included. Key terms that come up when thinking about community contribution sites include : edit delete add etc. which are good ones, but i have high hopes for this project, like i said with the "emotion" project, i want this to feel like more than a site, but a "home" in the sense of the word home, not just a homepage.

More on functions when I read more about what feels good and not. And at some point soon, i am going to ask some people to read my blogs and see what they think, and get feedback from potential future users.

We Are All Connected

Networking is the second if not first most important part of this project because though mapping and making these stories/experiences can be fun and/or sentimental, the fact remains that it should be a social community.

The networking aspect of it will probably most likely be easiest if responses are tagged. I posted earlier about if you had a story about your cat dying, you may want to tag a map : DEATH PET CAT

I want to create a tagging system like the one similar to delicious so people can find stories that they feel are related to them. People care about something more if they feel connected, so this network of tagging is the easiest way to connect people who were at the same concert or did a certain profession.

I feel like many times in life we meet people, and have casual conversations, then eventually find out something about them that is very similar to your own experience, this is a way of finding out those things with people that you may have never known otherwise. Sort of a social realizor.

The interface and networking features should feel like everyone can be and is connected to each other whether by stories, locations, other maps, etc.

Tools of the Trade

Every site has their own form of tools, which are similar to functions, each tool needs a function. When thinking about Myspace, their tools include, bulletins, myspace music and film, HTML editing, etc. Digg has ... well digging, their news voting tool.

The tools i want are specific to maps. Obviously there are tools such as features, which is a different post which i have minorly touched on.

I really want to focus on the tools of the map.

What I envision is a map that has a toolbar similar to photoshop, but obviously not as many tools. I want the mapping process to feel like you are just painting in your experience.

therefore some of the tools I think it should include are

1.) Paintbrush - if you just want to blob the area of your experience
2.) Eraser - erase mistakes
3.) Pencil - if you have a very specific area you want to outline.
4.) Colors Palette - ...colors
5.) Options - options would be where you could change stroke, etc.

I think these are suitable options, posting should feel simple and not overbearing for users unfamiliar with a palette of tools such as that.

DHTMLing it Up, +Functionality

The last few posts have heavily relied on features/aspects of the project I want to focus on, which I think are heavily important. If i care about this project, other's will, which will make me happy because I am very excited about this.

Anyways, thinking about the last few posts have been more about features, and I need to start thinking about technical aspects of my project. I think taking NMD302 is going to help me a lot because there is a lot with DHTML (and of course CSS) that I can achieve with the site. There will also have to obviously be a database, which will have to be a collaborative piece of the project because I know 2% of PHP, which I have probably forgotten how to do.

Thus, coming to technical aspects of the site i need. I thought i would make a list of technical features I will need to use, and briefly how they will be used.

1.) DHTML - Since DHTML relies heavily on DIVs, it will be easier for people to access parts of the site they want, whether it be recent stories/maps/etc. Navigation will be a key part in making navigation easy for the user. People don't want to spend all day on a website, they want to do what they want to do, so DHTML will help make accessing what people want easier.

2.) Javascript - Though I know little now, hopefully more will be collected as the semester, the effects of javascript will be inherent with the DHTML to collapse things, allow things to happen when they are clicked, maybe expandable maps and such.

3.) PHP - Unavoidable. People are going to have accounts, which will be customizable for their networks of experiences and maps. I know very little about PHP , so I will need some help with the functionality of the site. I am sure i can come up with some good designs and such on my own, maybe a little collaboration, but most of that will come in the making community portions of the site.


After I research and learn how to do these things more in depth (later on posting more specifically about the things i will need when I decide more on layouts, overall features, etc.), I can really dive into the code and see what things I like and feel will contribute more.

THEN ! Another component is looking for mapping programs. I know that google has their maps which are pretty easily used, but I want to research more about seeing if a GoogleEarth would be the best way to go. I feel as if the realism of google earth adds more of a component of memory and ties to the place if it looks like a building rather than an invisible space on a street map.

Emotions Flowing, Capstone Knowing

Life sometimes has some amazingly....pensive, but enlightening moments.

Tonight, a very deep night full of conversations, has told me alot about myself and such, but somehow does relate to this project I hope to become something very special.

Basically, not to get into details, it's been quite a night, but sometimes you have really deep conversations with other people. One that make you think about life, and what really matters and things that are important. I was talking with a girl I really like about how I like her and all, and talking online can be so stupid at times because they are just words on a screen and no matter how much you mean them or how much conviction you actually have, words are nothing without tone and emotion, which are hard to convey in an online experience...



..which is what i hope to do with my project, i hope to put in components of emotions. I believe having easily uploaded pictures, audio bites and such will help convey these emotions, but hopefully something else, I am not sure right now, but I wanted to post, so I can come back when compiling to remember this night and all the crazy emotions, because posting about a card game you had, and a night like this have different emotions, and though emoticons are great and super, i think i want to develop something else as a conveyer of emotions, which is the hardest thing to do online, may be or may not be successful but something i want to think about, because these are the stories of our lives and experiences of our days, so I want to make sure that they are told the way they are supposed to be!

Past and Present...Why Not FUTURE?

So, compiling ideas has been a lot of fun the last few days. Tonight, I went to late night in the Union and finally got a good caricature of myself (with the labyrinth worm and all - in the past i have been a fat man with a hamburger and sharon stone, so this was amazing), thinking about all the events that happened there, and how I had been waiting a few days for it to come, it gave me some ideas for "HomeQuest" (i am changing that within a week, it's starting to annoy the hell out of me)

Basically, there would be a subsection or however the layout/posting/maps will finally be set up. Since there will be layers of history of maps, there can be future trends of maps in two ways.

A.) Events that you know are coming up. Concerts that happened, ROCK ON. Concerts that WILL happen, ROCK ON x's 2! If you know of something coming up soon, or even 1,000 years for now, mark it (with tags and systematic color coding which has not yet been panned out). If you have a grave site somewhere that could be marked as "event waiting to happen" or some sort of pending (though something as a gravesite is kind of dismal and dark)

B.) Predictions? If there is enough layers of history that you could make a prediction about a given place and time put it in the "future box". Maybe your stories will come true, but maybe in 20 years someone will see what your prediction for that year was, and laugh because it was the exact same, or something completely opposite.

These are a few ideas floating around. I want this project to be serious and have homage to memories (fluffy dying, megan's first kiss), but also have an aspect of community and fun, functionality for everyone from parents to professionals, so hopefully there will be main components to the site, where the storytelling and such goes on, but also side things like, timelines, "future box", tags, etc.

.

Laughing Hard For Ideas

So, since I have been starting posting research / ideas about capstone, I have been trying to think about my day as a whole, assemble my thoughts, and try to focus experience (which is what my project is based on!) and transform them into features that can be integrated into this.

Tonight, I went to a comedian (Kyle Cease...who was the funniest comedian I have ever seen), and coming back and thinking about my time tonight, i thought about an expansion on my last post. My last post I explained how a memory area could be drawn over a certain place (and now that i think about it maybe even time). I was thinking about Kyle, and how he flies from venue to venue doing shows, so if he had a pink map area for "comedy shows" (this gives me another idea of when you sign in you can color code your own maps, so when people bookmark you as a mapper friend, then you can see that they had childhood memories in yellow and college memories in blue). Anywho, so Kyle is saying he wants all his comedy shows to be pink, so he dots all the venues, and sets off memorable experiences that happens to each of his concerts...

As he is mapping his memories, my memory overlaps in Orono Maine with his (if he thought orono maine was cool enough to map), so using tags or whatnot, we both had the same experience at the same place at the same time, so we would become networked together in some way.

HomeQuest (which i want to drop the name of very soon from now because it isn't all about HOMES, though that is one thing I want to investigate) would provide a visual system of people you are connected to through experience and place.

If the NMD Capstone class all did their presentations in DPC, and some of us decided to do that, we could be notified that other people had the same experience at the same time...maybe not at the same time, but past NMD students did their capstones at DPC, so they could be connected to us by at least place.

Still playing with the idea, but I am excited, because it presents more of a community aspect when we feel connected to others.

I am also thinking that when you click on an experience you are able to comment on other people's experiences. Like if a friend of mine could not make the show tonight they may say something about how they wanted to go, or Kyle Cease could comment and say "thanks for coming to the show".

I'm getting excited!

(thanks kyle cease for more ideas)



(i am getting happy that these daily occurances are sparking ideas for my capstone!)

Don't Disregard Anything....it could be research

I was just conversing with a friend about capstone and whatnot. Again, I was saying "how am I to integrate my daily surroundings as research for my project". I was talking about the concert my friend and I went to last night (Click 5), and how would that help me. In the obvious sense, i want to map experiences, so concerts are great ideas for this, but cynically I said "Catch The Wave" can totally help me think of ideas, the ocean the ocean! My friend was like "i have memories at the ocean", i responded, "more less with the coast, though you are going on a cruise this spring break".
BING! It gave me a great idea, not only could the memory map be an area, but more less entire trips. If someone took a cruise across the saint lawrence, there could be a time line, more like a TRIP LINE, of memories, a stream of conscious thoughts and memories.

I made a picture to go along with how I envision this:



On the map you can see a green screamline with black dots on it. The green is the trip whereas the black dots are "milestones" or submemories of the entire trip. The interface would allow for a complete synopsis of the trip, and then key in on memories from zoomed in places.

Funny, thanks Click 5 for letting me "Catch The Wave"

Gooooooooogle

Looking around today at some mapping programs, I looked a little more into google earth, which I think is a great program. It shows satelite imaging close up of areas, which is the kind of mapping programming that would be great for my capstone.

Google Earth is a program that zooms into real world looking maps and let's you see what things in a closer dimension like the picture shown below.


Not that I want to just rip off the maps but they are very nice. Instead of explaning a layout idea, I will just show what kinds of things I want to do then explain a little about it.


So, as can be seen from thsi picture. there would be a client on the map, almost like a photoshop toolbar where people can color in their "memory spots". When this area is mapped, you will be able to write a description/post/etc. (almost like ina blog format). Colors would correspond to two things

A.) Types of experiences - family trips would be different than say love memories
B.) Time Periods - Where the blue is shown on the map, maybe those things were not ther 20 years ago, so the project would have you input a year to change the status of the map


There would be search filtering (almost like in "the pool") to allow experiences to be filtered by story type, time period, etc. because 1,000 people could have the same memory in the same spot.

these are just some things I have been thinking about, I think more research on google earth will help key in on some more topics and ideas also!

Jon Ippolito makes sense

Thinking about my project earlier today (and even before today), I have a lot in mind on what kinds of stories I want to tell and what kinds of features I want on the site.

After capstone, I had a few classes that made me realize some things I want to do with my website, and maybe even a few other things :

N M D 3 0 2 : Interactive Web Development
Basically, I think this class will give me some nice skills on how to make "HomeQuest" (I am starting to hate that name) more applicatible to the user using DHTML and some other things such as remote scripting. Hopefully learning these things will make this place on the net a lot more usable and navigatable

N M D 3 0 5 : Variable Media
Off handedly before this class, I was discussing my capstone with a friend, explaning about how we have to do these blog posts when I said "It's weird because say I am watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it's not like I am going to be like 'OMG BUFFY TOTALLY KILLED A VAMPIRE HERE.'" ...but that is not entirely untrue. After variable media, I thought about how I could remix my own capstone project into meaning more for more people. I know a lot of people who are very much into television or even books. This could even be an idea for the main site (as a fun add-on or something), but also as a remix version where the maps and stories could be from stories, movies, games that everyone already knows, such as where buffy killed all of the vampires in sunnydale could be a map of episode guides, etc. That may not be distinctly relative to what I envision homequest for right now, but it gave me a few ideas on how everything I do can give me ideas for this, so I am interested in what other off-handed conversations will be giving me ideas :) (and information in other NMD classes)

HomeQuest

I am about 90% sure that I want to keep developing a project that I started in 206. I think it has a lot of potential and want to research based around this topic, and then get help in coding and programming the idea.

The idea is named (for now) "HomeQuest". I want to think of a new name, but as for now this is what I have.

Over the last year I have thought about some different interfaces I would use with it.

this is the work that i did in 206 concerning the project.
http://cordova.asap.um.maine.edu/~leavittm3/206final.html

My goal is to really investigate memory and stories. I talked with a few professors who mention that maybe i am talking more about stories than memories, as per who completely remembers a place.

For research, I want to investigate places, memories, stories, and such, so this can become a place of stories that connect people.

In class today we talked about how we are all connected and how these projects matter to us as well as the outside world. We all care about the places we've been, the people we've grown up with, schools, etc., so "HomeQuest" is a membrane to hold all these stories in.

Research will most likely include varies of social programs as well as mapping programs since this is sort of a nexus of those two existing parties. I intend on really investigating features and whatnot so people can come together to share experiences.

Another hope I had for this nexus was the ability to see the past , present, and future. We see the past through stories, pictures, posts, etc (and hopefully a map that shows historically what was in locations), the present of where we are today, and maybe where we want to move, or go based on other peoples experiences in one place.

As per presentation, I have been thinking about a lot of different things. Doing a map of campus, talking with people, and interacting that way, doing a personal map of my memories in the world, and then hopefully creating this site for people to go onto and use.

These are some initial thoughts, but I very much enjoy the idea of doing a social mapping of stories.