freeFormed.net

We live in an increasingly complex, networked world, where almost anything or anyone is accessible in virtual spaces or through virtual channels. The ability to initiate and maintain connections in this way has not only redefined our methods of communication, but our concept of identity. Interaction online not only affects our personal sense of self in the physical world but, more importantly, feeds our collective social and global identity. Emerging technology utilized by online social networks and media sharing portals has allowed large populations of people to publish themselves to a degree that has not been afforded before. The ramifications of which should, theoretically, enable individuals and communities to contribute valuable content to the global conversation. However, the implementation of the current popular networking applications has flourished on the voyeuristic exploration of online identity, resulting in content serving primarily as entertainment or fodder for personal self-expression. In spite, or perhaps because, of their tremendous popularity, many of the current social networking and media sharing sites have failed to tap into what is the ultimate power of possessing an online identity; the creation of relevant conversations within groups that are built upon and extend beyond the context of the online platform itself. This effect has a direct relationship to the popularity of the current online social structure, which places emphasis on the individual, rather then building an architecture that can support communication centered around communities, community building and social action. freeFormed.net is an experiment attempting to bridge this gap by allowing members to uploaded media in various ways to communal spaces, allowing the media to become the point of conversation and connection, rather then self-serving statements about personal identity. Freeformed has also structured their architecture around the capabilities of mobile phones, opening up access to individuals and communities that may have not previously been able to contribute to the global conversation due to technological barriers.

Prior to ITP, I was primarily trained as a photographer. I became interested in photography because of its uncanny ability to transmit information, not simply of what was actually within the frame of the photograph itself, but latent information referencing things outside of the visual. Photographs are inherently not mirrors of the real world; they are defined by their ability to place a filter on reality. This filter is a powerful construct because its existence allows anyone with a camera to place an intentional or sub-conscious frame around physical space that allows things to become both evident and hidden about the architectural, social, cultural and political ways in which we define and organize our world.
When I began my undergraduate studies, the Photography Department at NYU had just changed their name to Photography and Imaging, in response to what was expected to be a revolution in the tools of photographic production. In 1997, however, my primary interest was the photograph as art object and I focused most of my attention on shooting and printing in the traditional sense; with film and my hands deep in chemicals. My ideas about the relevance of the photograph changed considerably, however, in 2000 when I went to see a show created by the Head of the Photography Department called Collected Visions. Collected Visions was a video projection of a slide show that included user-submitted photographs and found imagery of family life. The show was both beautiful and incredibly powerful. Among other things, it made me contemplate for the first time that perhaps the power of the photograph, and of media in general, was not specifically attached to its production methods and that it was the collective aggregation of the photograph around ideas that made it both conceptually powerful and socially significant. This realization sparked my interest in attempting to discover how new tools of media production, publishing and distribution could affect the way in which ideas are transmitted and change the people to whom these tools are accessible.
When I first came to ITP, I was immediately interested in exploring ideas surrounding new ways to produce and distribute media content. However, I quickly realized that my working within this new realm would have to be informed by issues of access. I had previously been completely disconnected from the realm of networked communication. Although this had been my choice, rather than an effect of socio-economic class, I was particularly concerned with developing tools that could be easily be used by anyone. It was at this point that I became excited by the potential of the mobile phone, not simply because of its ubiquity, but because of its ability to remain constantly attached to the global network. I began experimenting with ways to get ideas and media content out of the phone, and utilize this content within different structures. Around this time, I also became interested in exploring online social networking. I went through a period of signing up for every social site I could find. I realized that the current architecture that many of these sites had adopted was tapping into a particular power of connected conversation. Yet upon continued usage of many of these sites, I not only became disheartened by the lack of relevant communication, I also became bored. I began to wonder if there was a reasonable way in which the power of being a node within a complex structure of nodes could facilitate the kind of group interaction that produces social action and discussion around topics of community importance rather than simply an impetus for identity discovery.

In an article called “Living Online, I’ll have to ask my friends” in the September 2006 addition of the New Scientist, Liz Else and Sherry Turkle asked what has increasingly become one of the most important questions for the future of the social web: “People are connecting one-on-one - they have their online social network or their cell phone with 250 people on speed dial, but do they feel part of a community?” There is no question that the ability to communicate conveniently both in text and media across geographical barriers has revolutionized the way in which we manage our relationships and, in some cases, the way we develop them. It has also unquestionably increased access to commercial and independent media that those who are connected to the network are able to find, consume and even subscribe to through RSS. The ability to easily self-publish in the form of blogs, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and the like has also increased the level to which many average consumers of media have also become creators, broadcasting to a global audience. The problem is, the architecture that supports most of these platforms still facilitates an old Hollywood media model. This kind of model emphasizes the cult of celebrity rather than the development of groups focused on relevant conversation.

The rush to assimilate as many MySpace friends as possible or the 10,000 hits a particular video might receive on YouTube are examples of the values that are being perpetuated in online social spaces. The concept behind this kind of culture is one of visibility. To a certain degree, in an online environment polluted and saturated with content, visibility makes sense. If something is of interest, there is no way a large audience will ever find it without some kind of visibility. In fact, the very success of the more popular social networking platforms rests on the promise of achieving some kind of visibility. These kinds of values, however, ignore two important concepts. First, with no relative cohesion of ideas or filtering of content, and with everyone seeking to be seen, searchibility, particularly of media, is completely crippled. User tagging has attempted to facilitate more accurate searches within many platforms. But its reliance on successful user implementation without any other supporting structure often does not fully address the problem.

Second, and most importantly, what is relevant or interesting to a portion of the population is not necessarily relevant to everyone. Many online social platforms attempt to include a feature that allows users to create groups. Sometimes this feature is utilized, with the most success among platforms that include extensive media sharing. But these features often feel like add-ons to support the individualized structure of personal profiles rather than places with a destination of their own. The tools to create such spaces are quite restrictive, not providing added layers of privacy, context and reward that are needed for an actual group or community to form and sustain member interest and group success.

If the social web is going to progress from a place of connection to a place of group and community formation, these architectural issues have to be explored and addressed. Communities that are localized and formed around central interests and unique, shared goals could greatly benefit from new forms of technology found within the social networking world. However, this technology not only has to be structured to meet their needs, but it has to be easy to use and as accessible as possible.

FreeFormed.net utilizes the open source environments of PHP, MySql, Perl and Asterisk. FreeFormed also enables an easy and intuitive user-interface through implementation of Ajax.

FreeFormed is structured around the concept of circles. A circle is a communal, member-defined place where members post their media surrounding a particular area of interest. FreeFormed members can create and subscribe to as many circles as they wish. Instead of media being automatically posted or archived within a personal profile, media on freeFormed is uploaded directly to these communal spaces. Users can choose a default circle for ease of uploading or they can change their circle on the fly, uploading to any circle they are subscribed to. Circles also can contain a variety of contextual information including descriptions of its purpose and external links to related websites. Members can interact with media by posting blog style text comments, media comments, voice comments or tags. Members can also sort media within a circle by type, member or tag, making it easier to find and group information. Circles also allow their creators to set a wide variety of parameters governing its visibility. Creators can give up, retain or share administrative control, make their circles public or private, limit subscription or leave them open and dictate who can comment and tag on media posted within the circle. Members of a circle can also create and post events relevant to the circle’s cause and invite all other circle members to these events.

The formation of circles within FreeFormed highlights the kind of bonding relationships that occur within close knit groups in the physical world. But freeFormed is also interested in developing bridging relationships between circles, which have the ability to introduce new ideas within different groups, promote discussion around similar topics and facilitate the introduction of groups to one another that have similar interests but are not aware of each other. Circles are linked on freeFormed automatically if two particular circles share a predetermined number of members, much the same way that social groups in the physical world are often linked by people who socialize within two separate groups of friends. Circles can also be linked if they share a large number of the same tags.

Tags on freeFormed are used in a similar way as sites like Flickr, as a search mechanism and relationship pointer to similar media files. However, they are also used to tag circles themselves and to provide users with contextual information about other users’ interests.

FreeFormed utilizes a very simple profile structure where the only information the user submits is their username. The rest of the profile is comprised of their activities within the site, primarily tags, their subscribed circles and their last six media uploads. This allows users to be identifiable based on their activity, rather than an assumed identity that the user creates by filling out a traditional form. Users are able to find other users by searching for their name and they are able to view their profile within circles that a particular user is subscribed to. However, freeFormed does not implement any form of friend requesting. In a similar manner to circles, users are linked if they are in a certain number of circles with another user and if they communicate with another user’s media files reciprocally, either adding comments or tags.

By implementing a circle structure that empathizes algorithmic linking, like interests and media are aggregated in places that are easily searchable. The search feature within freeFormed additionally allows users to view information about their search parameters easily before being redirected to another page so that they never lose their query results. Users are always notified the minute they sign-in if new media has been uploaded to their subscribed circles or if media from any circle has been tagged with one their popular tags, making it even easier to find things of personal interest.