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A mapstory has a new way of communicating important issues to a
global audience...
communicating to others how the world has changed over time.
How the world has transformed...
communities, cities, nations, migrations, trade,
cultures and languages, ideas, diseases, wars,
the natural environment, the shifting of continents, events and eras,
and any kind of statistic... as they are arrayed across local regional or global
landscapes.
Your mapstory may spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years.
It could span centuries, millennia, or the full breadth of geologic time.
It could even reflect your predictions of the future.
Mapstories can be simple and small, or detailed and very large, encompassing the
whole world
down to the smallest detail.
Mapstorytellers can tell their stories as they see fit.
You can publish your own narrative by creating annotations of discrete events
or periods in time.
These annotations can sit on the map, or on the timeline, or both.
You can shape your mapstory with mixed media, including audio video and images
in your annotations.
Users can choose to watch a mapstory as you have published it,
or they can use it as a starting point for their own exploration,
fast forwarding or going backwards in time, pausing as they explore the
landscape through pan and zoom, or navigating their own path as they also manipulate time.
MapStory.org is a new dimension to the global data commons,
where you can share what you know about the world that we live in.
its rich past, complex present, and uncertain future.
The storylayers and mapstories that you add are your gifts to the world,
shared under creative commons and open database licenses.
The site is completely open and free to use, built entirely on open source
software, so the community can evolve it's features as it sees fit.
Because of this, a mapstoryteller can publish any number of storylayers that
anyone and everyone can use as a basis of their own mapstories.
Soon it will be possible to edit this underlying data in a manner much like
Wikipedia, where all changes can be tracked and can be reverted easily
with the click of a button.
All edit history will be maintained.
The MapStory community will be able to leverage its collective expertise,
and gradually refine these storylayers
to reflect our best grasp of the totality of our knowledge on the given subject.
MapStory is much more than the way we traditionally think of mapping, but
historic maps can still play a role.
Whether digital or analog, mapping has been of a static image.
Every map is associated with a moment in time and with the tools we have today,
these historic snapshots can become part of your mapstory.
Over the coming years, mapstory.org will grow as a global repository for
storylayers and mapstories
on which the global community can collaborate.
You'll be able to embed mapstory visualizations of change over time,
anywhere and everywhere,
whether on a personal site, a blog,
an online media outlet,
or perhaps someday even a wikipedia article.
We invite you to become part of the global MapStory community...
create data and stories...
peer review the work of others...
or build upon others' data in order to tell your own stories.
You can help the world become a better place by helping us all
better understand the world around us.