The idea
People think in pictures not words. A picture is worth a thousand words. This site invites users to source, post, and tag images to create a personal picture collage that sums up who they are, what they care about, and where their lives are going. Users cannot use photos of themselves or their friends and family. Site users search the net or a site archive for web-published images, grab them on to their collage space, and tag each one with its meaning in text. The site will match together users with similar pictures and tags and host various social networking tools.
What social need does it address?
People who write well dominate social networks on the web. This can limit the emotional and imaginative content of web communication, and can also exclude less proficient or confident readers, writers, and keyboard users from participating in social networking sites- for example older people or basic English speakers. Visual communication potentially allows for more meaningful interaction and more inclusive social networking. A web space for picture collaging would provide a low-tech, free, and fun way for users to explore visual communication.
What’s new about it?
Flickr provides a documentary image record of users lives, classified with simple library tags. Creating and reviewing picture collages made from found images that evoke personal meanings, gets individuals to think creatively, intuitively, and emotionally about themselves and others. Through making and sharing meaning in this visual way, users can achieve a different level of communication with one another over the web.
What inspired you?
Picture collaging is a well-known “offline” participation method, used as an ice-breaker for individuals about to work in a group together. I’ve done this couple of times and I’ve been impressed by how fun and creative it is, and also by the depth at which participants can communicate visually about their own lives.
Idea submitted by Robbie Hoque
Robbie is a self employed researcher working with the New Economics Foundation’s democracy and participation team, conducting issues research for public consultation tools.