A new way to tell stories using webpages, videos and audio, with Farfromhomepage

scissors 520x245 A new way to tell stories using webpages, videos and audio, with Farfromhomepage

At first, its tempting to look at Farfromhomepage and think, Why would I need this? However, dig into it and its actually a very interesting way of presenting and sharing online content in a way that tells a story.

The idea behind Farfromhomepage is Creative Browsing, the term that the German team behind it uses to describe the idea of taking websites, YouTube videos and audio clips from SoundCloud and turning them into a multimedia presentation called a Tour that others can play back in their browsers.

Tours are created by using a tool that allows you to make clippings from web pages and import YouTube and SoundCloud content just by pasting in a URL. Text can also be added, and everything youve collcted can then be assembled on a timeline, similar to video editing. Content is loaded from the source on-demand, meaning that pages included in tours get views added to their stats, and videos and audio clips play counts increase.

While the tools available can take a little getting used to, they are being used to great effect by some early users. Take this tour called Run for example (the play buttons in the bottom-left corner), for a simple but effective idea of what could be done as people get used to the service.

Screen Shot 2011 12 22 at 12.13.11 520x350 A new way to tell stories using webpages, videos and audio, with Farfromhomepage

Fa rfromhomepage is still in an experimental phase, but a paid-for version is planned for next year, enabling users to embed tours on their own websites. The Berlin-based developers believe that this will be especially useful for product demos, asthis example tour of an Android appdemonstrates. However, theres real potential for this to be used in journalism, as an effective way of turning Web content into a documentary-style experience.This tour about the concept of karma, while a little rough around the edges, hints at the possibilities.

Farfromhomepage is similarWebdoc (see our previous coverage here), although with an emphasis more on story telling than the latters multimedia messages approach.

Although you cant sign up to try Farfromhomepage from its homepage yet, if you use the link below, youll get right in.

Farfromhomepage

Screen Shot 2011 12 22 at 12.24.03 520x350 A new way to tell stories using webpages, videos and audio, with Farfromhomepage


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Indian e-commerce website Flipkart adds prepaid Wallet feature

Image
Flipkart has added a prepaid Wallet feature to its e-commerce platform that allows shoppers to store money on the site and use it to purchase items, without having to reach for their credit card for each transaction, according to a MediaNama report . Flipkart, the first billion dollar Internet company from India, is by far the leading online store in the nation.Founded by former Amazon employees Sachin and Binny Bansal in 2007, it expects to increase its sales tenfold in the ongoing fiscal year to about $100 million by March 2012. It already offers shoppers the convenience of Cash on Delivery (CoD), using whichfor a small feethe shopper can choose to pay for purchases in cash when they have been delivered to their doorstep. This is in addition to the usual credit and debit card and net banking options that the service also offers to online shoppers. The newly launched Wallet aims to make online payments easier and more secure for customers by sparing them the hassle of fetching thei...
Keep reading

Samsung ordered to compensate Huawei $11.6 million for patent infringement

Image
China court orders Samsung units to pay $11.6 million to Huawei over patent case A Chinese court has ordered Samsung Electronics's ( 005930.KS ) mainland subsidiaries to pay 80 million yuan ($11.60 million) to Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL] for patent infringement, the China firm's first victory against Samsung on its legal challenges over intellectual property. Three units of Samsung have been ordered by the Quanzhou Intermediary Court to pay the sum for infringing a patent held by Huawei Device Co Limited, the handset unit of Huawei, the Quanzhou Evening News, a government-run newspaper, said on its website on Thursday. The verdict is the first on several lawsuits of Huawei against the South Korean technology giant. Huawei filed lawsuits against Samsung in May in courts in China and the United States - the first by it against Samsung - claiming infringements of smartphone patents. Samsung subsequently countersued Huawei in China for IP infringement. A spokesman for...
Keep reading

Pour one out for the Tevatron particle accelerator, because it's shutting down today

Image
The eyes of the physics community are collectively fixed upon Illinois today, where, later this afternoon, researchers at Fermilab will shut down the Tevatron particle accelerator... for good. That's right -- the world's second-largest collider is being laid to rest, after a remarkable 25-year run that was recently halted due to budgetary constraints. Earlier this year, Fermilab's scientists and a group of prominent physicists pleaded with the government to keep the Tevatron running until 2014, but the Energy Department ultimately determined that the lab's $100 million price tag was too steep, effectively driving a nail through the accelerator's subterranean, four-mile-long coffin. First activated in 1985, the Tevatron scored a series of subatomic breakthroughs over the course of its lifespan, including, most notably, the discovery of the so-called top quark in 1995. Its groundbreaking technology, meanwhile, helped pave the way for CERN's Large Hadron Collider ...
Keep reading