HistoryPin

Historypin describes itself as "an online tool that acts as a digital time machine, allowing people to view and share history in a totally new way." It allows users to pin photos onto the Historypin map, overlaying old images onto modern ones, creating "windows onto the past."

The website is the work of the voluntarism movement We Are What We Do and was built with support from Google. The site is hosted on Google App Engine and uses technology from Google Maps and Street View. Its stated aim is "to become the largest user-generated archive of the world's historical images and stories."

Although History Pin claims to be novel, Chris Wild's How To Be A Retronaut has been doing something very similar for quite a while.  

Anyhow, this is how the Historypin advertisement campaign describes the project: 

WHAT IT WANTS YOU TO DO 

In a phrase: feed its archive. Historypin says that the site forms part of "a series of projects …to get generations talking more, sharing more and coming together more often." The site is mostly looking for external shots, but is also interested in internal shots should they offer information on how the world once looked. It believes the project will allow people to find out about their own history, to discover who they are and where they have come from. 

24 January 2011