501derful.org
I was recently on the BetterPhoto site and discovered that Jim Miotke has a digital photography podcast. Jim has paired this podcast with photo examples as an effective teaching device. As a budding photographer, I find this very helpful. I also find this an interesting social networking concept. We already have Flickr as well as other photo hosting sites, but do we have sites that allow people to use their own voice and photos to share with others?
I’m specifically thinking about Relay for Life. Many photos are taken at the event, but how many people are able to really describe the feeling of the event? I think it would be very powerful if people were able to easily post a podcast with slide show describing the event, what they saw, what they felt, ideas they had for future relays, etc.
You’re right, Trish, putting photos together with audio or other graphics could be a useful medium. What would be best would be to see photos in sequence with an audio narration. There is software out there that you can use to develop narrated slide shows. You can then convert the whole thing to mpeg and show it like a video. I tried to do that a few months ago with with Roxio, a program I have on my home computer. There’s a learning curve and it takes the right planning to get the slides to transition at the right time for your audio. I didn’t have the time to finish the project. I’m sure there’s a market opportunity for some software company. Indeed, I think the mainstream hardware and software companies still haven’t gotten the word that there’s a big market out there of people who want to produce for the social network instead of just burn CDs and listen. For now, you have to cobble solutions together.