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Historypin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Historypin was a digital, user-generated archive of historical photos, videos, audio recordings and personal recollections. Users were able to use the location and date of their content to "pin" it to Google Maps.[1] Where Google Street View was available, users could overlay historical photographs and compare it with the contemporary location.

This content could be added and explored online. There were formerly a series of smartphone applications, but these were all discontinued as of 2015.[2]

The project was created by the non-profit company Shift (formerly We Are What We Do), as part of their inter-generational work, with funding and support from Google as part of a series of commitments to digital inclusion.[3] The website had over 200,000 assets and recollections "pinned" to the Historypin map around the world, with higher contributions in the UK, USA and Australia.[4] The beta version of the website was launched in June 2010 at the Royal Institute in London by Nick Stanhope, CEO of Shift and the full project was launched at the Museum of the City of New York in July 2011.

Contributors

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As well as user-generated content, material was added to the site from museums, local history societies, historical photo archives, newspaper archives and businesses. Contributors included Biggleswade History Society, Bishopsgate Institute, John Lewis Partnership, Mirrorpix, New York Transit Museum, PhillyHistory.org, The Ritz Hotel, Baltimore Museum of Industry and the Science & Society Picture Library and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.[5][6]

References

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  1. ^ Leith, Sam "With Historypin, photography has entered the fourth dimension", The Guardian, 4 July 2010
  2. ^ Rebekkah Abraham, "Why we’re pulling our mobile app", HistoryPin GoogleGroup Post, 2015
  3. ^ Crow, Charlotte "Historypin: Patchwork History", History Today, 7 June 2010
  4. ^ Skipworth, Hunter "Historypin turns Google Street View into a window on the past", The Telegraph, 26 June 2010
  5. ^ Gillo, Claire "Science & Society Picture Library opens archives to Historypin" Archived 16 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine, www.dphotographer.co.uk, 11 November 2010
  6. ^ "Digital time machine gives new picture of history", Luton Today, 2 July 2010
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