OurPlace 3G to 3D

As social networking has evolved on the World Wide Web, users have tended to gravitate towards niche communities built around shared interests. The importance of physical location and local community has been downplayed. The OurPlace 3G to 3D project addresses a gap in existing social software models by combining online communities of interest with communities of place. OurPlace is an online mapping and visualisation project that supports local community collaboration. It enables users to upload media captured by mobile devices into its point of origin in an online map. They can then combine it within this interface into new collaborative media and narratives of place. The geographic metaphor provides a context for engaging communities in producing local media content, media sharing and co-production. It also provides the context for reading the media in relation to the local community.