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.

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.


Although freeFormed\'s mission statement specifically identifies social action as one of our personal goals, we are committed to allowing our users to dictate the content of the site. In addition, although the freeFormed structure was built to support uploading from mobile phones, our main goal was to enable anyone to contribute. To facilitate this goal we have enabled uploading via email and from a user\'s computer directly to the site. We have also enabled VOIP functionality that allows users to leave voice messages for circles they are subscribed to.

Although we are specifically attempting to target socially conscious activist groups to join the site, we are hopeful that it will become a place where many different kinds of groups can come to share media and conversation within a structure that facilitates their needs and respects their privacy and ownership of media. We also hope that individuals will join the site and become aware of and subscribe to groups they were not previously aware existed.

A user would join freeFormed and browse through public circles that have been created. The user would then subscribe to circles of interest or create their own circle and invite either their friends or members of a group they belong to in the physical world. This user would then initiate conversation using photos and videos within these circles by sending media files from their mobile phone to mobile@freeformed.net or by uploading media from their computer. A user would also be able to contextualize their media uploads with a voice description by choosing on the fly to have freeformed call them after they upload. A user could also call in to leave a voice message for circles they are a member of.(call : 212.461.3167)

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.

The communal spaces that freeFormed provides makes it easier for different types of groups to interact on their own terms within areas that they have more comprehensive control over. With attention to issues of access, freeFormed also makes it possible for anyone, regardless of their exposure to technology, to be able to contribute to the freeFormed site. We are also hoping that we have provided a place where individuals who seek more out their connections to others can find the kinds discussions, information and media that they are looking for, or easily make their own space and facilitate the organization of information around any topic they find important.

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.

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.


Although freeFormed\'s mission statement specifically identifies social action as one of our personal goals, we are committed to allowing our users to dictate the content of the site. In addition, although the freeFormed structure was built to support uploading from mobile phones, our main goal was to enable anyone to contribute. To facilitate this goal we have enabled uploading via email and from a user\'s computer directly to the site. We have also enabled VOIP functionality that allows users to leave voice messages for circles they are subscribed to.

Although we are specifically attempting to target socially conscious activist groups to join the site, we are hopeful that it will become a place where many different kinds of groups can come to share media and conversation within a structure that facilitates their needs and respects their privacy and ownership of media. We also hope that individuals will join the site and become aware of and subscribe to groups they were not previously aware existed.

Ideally, a user would join freeFormed and browse through public circles that have been created. The user would then subscribe to circles of interest or create their own circle and invite either their friends or members of a group they belong to in the physical world. This user would then initiate conversation using photos and videos within these circles by sending media files from their mobile phone to mobile@freeformed.org or by uploading media from their computer. A user would also be able to contextualize their media uploads with a voice description by choosing on the fly to have freeformed call them after they upload. A user could also call in to leave a voice message for circles they are a member of.

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.



Over the past couple of months, freeFormed.net has undergone several user testing scenarios and to date we have over 50 users. So far, we have noticed that our users have been excited about the circle structure and have been contributing interesting media material to various circles. It also seems that users have utilized the circles to create or facilitate pre-existing communities or groups in the physical world. Circles range from destinations uniting people from similar cities/countries to socially conscious topics like climate control, sustainability and issues specific to women to playful circles among people with similar interests.

Moving forward, freeFormed is planning to test our functionality internationally and obtain grants to facilitate the costs of storing media and maintaining VOIP functionality. freeFormed also plans to attend various socially conscious events to publicize the site and encourage members of various these pre-existing communities to utilize freeFormed to support their needs and goals.