On November 28th, Cowbird launched a new online storytelling tool called Cowbird. Cowbird is a community of storytellers – who have a goal to tell deeper, longer-lasting pieces than what is on the web. The site started with an online piece called The Occupy Saga and the Story of the 99%, and the team behind the site writes that the tool is meant to provide a “slower” space for self-reflection and a place for personal connections.
I checked out the Occupy Wall Street story- and the images and amount of information and stories on the site provides a broader and bigger view of the Occupy movement. With full size photographs and individual accounts of Occupy events – it was an easy to use interactive platform where I could read about events in Zuccotti Park, Portland, Oakland, and other locations on one site. I also could choose to experience the stories through images or by reading the stories.
The website allows users to create a audio-visual diary, and to collaborate in documenting stories or what the site calls “sagas”. Sagas would include events like the Japanese earthquake, the war in Iraq, and the Occupy Wall Street movement – things that affect millions of lives and human history.
The project aims to make a new participatory journalism which focuses on collecting individual stories behind news events and large themes. The site aims to create a “public library” of human experience so that the information, knowledge, and experiences are available in an area called the commons, for future generations to be able to experience and learn from.
The online tool is unique, in that it provides a platform for full-screen photos, modern typography, infographics, hand-drawn iconography, and a non-distracting environment to support the viewer to be able to experience stories in a “360 degree” perspective. Viewers can view the stories in various views including by timeline, places, “characters,” and stories.
To start a Cowbird diary, you can request an invitation by submitting information about yourself, proposing the stories you would like to tell, and links to any of your past work.
Links:
The Occupy Saga— the story of the 99% on on Cowbird