New Stuff From OurStory

I've known about OurStory for awhile and met CEO Andy Halliday when they were in stealth mode and in the early days, collaborating with VideoEgg.

On the DEMO stage this afternoon, Andy showed a face lift to OurStory: an online service for member-generated storytelling and collaborative family history. Their online service essentially guides users to collaboratively create and share life stories and biographies.

OurStory combines the best of blogging, photo sharing, digital storytelling, and family history. It uses a rich feature set that includes an interactive visual timeline, privacy controls, collaborative email requests and a library of over 2,000 prompting interview questions.

While most social networking sites such as MySpace.com focus on adding "friends," OurStory encourages deeper sharing and a collaborative process of online storytelling among family, friends and groups.

Says Andy, "you can collect your life long media over the course of a timeline, tell the stories behind the pictures, family stories, love letters, etc. You can start a timeline for your child, with things to share that are as early as photos and audio of the ultrasound. The stories can be a combination of various file types. Media can be tagged and displayed by the who, what, and where of your life."

After uploading photos, audio, and video for various decades of your timeline, you can add text to it along the way and turn it into a book. While some people use it as an online diary about their personal lifestory, some use it as a way to celebrate the life of a family member, and others document a group of people's history, such as The Rhodesian Air Force.

They have a free service, as well as a premium subscription for $39.95 per year, which includes features such as multiple profiles and timelines, unlimited privacy circles, style embellishment, and discounts on books and CD/DVDs.