Location-based storytelling site Broadcastr useful for crisis mapping?

[Martin Montero]

hey yall 

Location-based storytelling site Broadcastr opens to the public today. might this be useful in cases such as cairo & lybia? Haiti? 

"The company is opening up its beta site to the public today, which will allow you to listen to stories tied to specific locations, as well as share you own tales. Broadcastr sees itself as an answer to the transient nature of social media. It’s aiming to create a historical archive of stories around the world, in addition to providing instant access to stories happening at the moment." http://venturebeat.com/2011/02/28/location-based-storytelling-site-broadcastr-opens-to-the-public

Cheers 

Martin 

[cryptos]

Martin,

This sounds like a very good idea.

I particularly sees its benefits for documenting human rights
violations, giving victims' and witnesses' a way to recount their
experiences in their own language. It may also prove a more convenient
way to convey information for those with reading and writing impairments
(given assistance of course). Of course it does not replace sources of
information such as text, photos and videos or social networking sites
(Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc.) but adds a more humane/emotional tone
to it. I also suspect that voices, being pretty much unique (forging is
always possible given the means), may have a higher evidential value
than text, photos or even videos (quality issue, lack of contextualizing
information, etc.) in case subsequent prosecutions are pursued.

As with all information, its value for documenting human rights
violation may remain limited and the effort to do so of little help,
however, unless when describing an incident a series of basic facts are
not conveyed such as:
- reference to time and places
- identification of the actors involved
- violations allegedly committed (killings, rapes, torture, etc.)
- numbers of victims (and if known gender, age, victim status (civilian,
combatant, aid worker, etc.)
- etc. to cite just a few.

Security, in particular the security of victims and witnesses, is in
such circumstances paramount. Being Internet based, I proper
counter-measures need to be devised to protect the identity of those
contributing information.

All the best,

Cryptosaure

On 02/28/2011 08:55 PM, Martin Montero wrote:
> hey yall
>
> Location-based storytelling site Broadcastr opens to the public today.
> might this be useful in cases such as cairo & lybia? Haiti?
>
> "The company is opening up its beta site to the public today, which
> will allow you to listen to stories tied to specific locations, as
> well as share you own tales. Broadcastr sees itself as an answer to

> the transient nature of social media. It�s aiming to create a