Historypin was chosen for this dissertation because it is a social mapping website and also a mobile application – available for iOS and Android operating systems – that allows users to pin images, video, and audio clips to Google Maps (Miller, K.C., 2013). Users can include a story about each image and other metadata.
It also enables the user to create a channel/profile, where you can manage and customize your content and page. The versatility of Historypin facilitates the work and uploading of contents, either on the fly from a smartphone or working at a desktop computer. Users are also able to see, on the map, stories that are near to them through location disclosure. I draw upon Chilcott (2013) who analyzed Historypin, among a couple of other two applications, as easy-to-use digital tools to engage both creators and end users in shared digital content and curated experiences relating to place and community. Chilcott (2013) argues that Historypin offers an alternative way to address digital inclusion within disadvantaged communities, by connecting people and place in new ways through digital technology.
Rather than being used by individuals, Historypin is being massively adopted by a number of academic, cultural and historical institutions to host historical image
collections. The Historypin interface allows the uploading of digital content and includes metadata elements, such as: title, date, geographic location and a general description field. For the purpose of this study, Historypin was chosen because of its integration of location-based data into the user interface on the website and mobile application.
The website was beta-launched in June 2010 and was created by “We Are What We Do,” a not-for-profit company supported by Google, and the global launch was in July 2011. In October 2014, this non-profit organization changed its name into
"Shift." The application was developed during the beta phase. Historypin was tested through a series of test activities in schools and neighborhoods all over the UK. The team partnered with over 100 libraries, archives and museums, which allowed them to add the first bulk of content.
Interestingly enough, on its blog, Historypin team explains that the website and app were created to help “people to come together from across different generations, cultures and places, around the history of their families and neighborhoods, improving personal relations and building stronger communities7.”
The purpose of this dissertation is in line with the goal of the organization, because I have worked with different generational groups, which give us a broad perspective of efficiency of the website and app. Despite not being our primary objective, in the results chapter, results will be provided about the usability and functionality of Historypin as a location-based application as a whole, because some of our participants were spontaneously reactive and critical of the mobile application and website.
It is worth noting that the few academic studies I found on Historypin are focused on the website rather than on the mobile application. In this work, we explore both formats: website and mobile app. Since location information is well anchored on one’s location, it is crucial for this study to understand how users understand the usage of a locative tool while on the go. Actually, Bagget & Gibbs (2014) point out that the uniqueness of Historypin lies in its locative capability. These authors explain how by “using locational information, collection administrators can “pin” archival images to a digital map that also has street-view capability, allowing users to switch
7 See https://www.historypin.org/faq/
between current and historical views of neighborhoods, buildings, and locations.
Other features include the ability to curate digital exhibits, display content in a slideshow, and use the mapping feature to create walking tours” (p.15).
It is also important to explain that even though Historypin has been used mainly as a tool for archival or old images (Bagget & Gibbs, 2014; Harkema &
Nygren, 2012), this study used this application beyond historical images. Due to the ease of use of Historypin, the application was very suitable for the purpose of understanding how local communities may be engaged with the production of locative stories. Furthermore, the mobile application supports both Android and IOS operating systems, which facilitates and broadens the possibilities of any smartphone user to use it. Historypin is categorized by past studies as a “social media” platform that may increases access to digital archives and collections of these libraries (ibid). In fact, Historypin is a common case study for studies about libraries, because of its “relative popularity among academic libraries” (Bagget & Gibbs, 2014, p. 15)
Historypin is also mentioned in the literature as a tool that enables mobile experiences that combine visual realities, present and past, live and recorded, in the sense that the application allows users to have modern photographs that can be inserted in appropriate places against the video background provided by the phone’s camera. This juxtaposition can be effective in helping the user to contrast the past and the present. With Historypin, the user can align the historical photograph with the video scene that is shown in the phone. Besides, one may then use a slide to make the historical image more or less opaque. As other locative media tools, this is a striking way to understand historical change – a way to see the past in the present.
By locative stories, this dissertation means any story that is about a physical location and is digitally attached to a physical place through technologies of location such as GPS-enabled phones. Therefore, Historypin is used as a broad locative information tool, despite its identity as a platform for history or archives. Historypin was created to close a generational gap. As Armstrong (2012) explains, the Historypin team wanted to create a tool that could help young and older generations to spend time together. They thought that “talking about photos” was a great starting point for conversations and for bringing people together. In this sense, Armstrong also mentions memory as an important aspect of Historypin, since old photographs are largely used as a memory trigger. This author says that Historypin has been a
"catalyst" for online and offline collaborations since its launch. Historypin works with several partners such as schools, communities, museums, archives and libraries.
Before choosing Historypin for this study, I looked at several other applications, such as crowdmap/Ushahidi, local wiki, and Broadcaster. I also talked to the journalism professor Amy Weiss Schmitz – at San Diego University- and Cindy Royal, – then at Texas State University – who have tried some of these apps with their students. After doing the research, I concluded that Historypin would be the easiest platform for participants. Although some researchers consider the low awareness of Historypin a drawback, the application has a user-friendly interface, and a very little learning curve for pinning. For the purpose of this study, a project page was created on Historypin called “Mapping Austin Memories”. By sharing a gmail account with all participants of the project, any participant in this study could access the channel and upload/geotag the locative stories (text plus picture) to Historypin. The page is available to any person to access:
http://www.historypin.com/channels/view/47908/#!photos/list/