Local Stories - Global Connections

You can set up your own PlaceStories member account. Users can join and participate in multiple PlaceStories communities and projects. Your username and password allows you to log in to the website and download the software. It also connects you to all the communities and projects that you join or create.

 

 

 

The PlaceStories software has some handy tools for getting your digital media together and managing your projects. Tools for capturing and editing images and audio are built in to the software so you have everything you need to create your stories in one system.

 

 

Stories bring together text, audio and images in creative ways. In the story editing area you can adjust the timing, set motion effects, add captions and text screens. You can build a soundtrack combining up to four tracks of music, voice-over and effects. A narration feature helps to easily sync your voice-over to images.

 

Most PlaceStories under two minutes long. They look and behave like videos but they are much smaller in file size. This keeps them small enough and short enough to view online. Each story is given a location and appears as a story marker on the relevant project map.

 

 

Projects are collections of stories published in a PlaceStories community. You can log in the community web server from the software using your username and password to add stories to an existing project or create your own. There is no limit to the number of stories or users you can have in a project, and in turn no limit to the projects in a PlaceStories community. Projects also enable groups of users to communicate and collaborate privately before sharing work in the broader community. Each PlaceStories Project is given a location and appears as a project marker on the relevant map for that community.

 

PlaceStories Communities are larger groups of users from a particular sector or network. Each Community has its own customised web-site – a sub-domain of the main PlaceStories site.

 

Each community also has its own nominated administrators to check all story content before it is made public. So the PlaceStories is a little different to most other user generated content systems like youtube or myspace in which individual users publish online directly. Larger communities are sustained through license agreements that provide for support services, system updates, data hosting and a range of other services. Users can put forward ideas on new PlaceStories communities and work with Feral Arts to set them up.

 

Each PlaceStories Website has a range of tools to support information sharing, communication and collaboration on projects and within communities. These include private messaging, chat, forums, blogs, news pages, events calendar, group email.

 

Ownership of all PlaceStories content remains with the user who creates it – they decide if they want to share it, and with whom from their own PC. So the system is like a database where most of the content sits on computers across the community.

 

The development of PlaceStories has been funded by the Australia Council and by Arts Queensland.

 

• Users - register to set up a password protected account to download and start using the software. Registered users can join and participate in multiple PlaceStories communities.

 

 

• Stories – stories combine text, audio and images. Each story is given a location and appears as a story marker on the relevant project map.  

 

 

 

• Projects – projects are collections of stories. They enable groups of users to communicate and work together. Each Project is given a location and appears as a project marker on the relevant community map.

 

 • Communities

– are larger groups of users from a particular sector or network. Each Community has its own customised web-site – a sub-domain of the main PlaceStories site. Each community also has administrators responsible for management and content moderation.