Epooq
Country:
Finland
Producer:
Oppifi Oy
The idea of Epooq is to create an experimental means for reliving past moments by recalling and telling stories. Epooq has three special features to reach the mark: INSPIRATION: The content of the service consists of 1) user stories; 2) historical events; and 3) thematic memory keys that refer to life phases of the user. The guiding idea is to inspire the user to recall past moments and reflect those experiences. STORYTELLING BY USING OWN VOICE: Epooq enables storytelling by using all avenues of multimedia. Users write texts, use images and record videos or audios, or mix these together. Video and audio are central functions. Stories gain a special quality when told by real voices, with personal intonation and slang. SHARING EXPERIENCES: While content is normally private to protect the privacy of the user, stories can be published or shared with communities important to the user. A key part of publishing is the opportunity to see one’s own story in its historical context. Epooq is still developing on the basis of user feedback, but comments of the first customers and users indicate, that it is hitting the right spot.
Jury Evaluation:
Creating content for the Internet is not as easy as it sounds, especially for structured narratives such as stories. The challenges are even more acute for communities such as elders, who have a wealth of knowledge and experience to share but may not be digitally savvy enough to use the latest digital storytelling tools. Finland’s Oppifi has met the needs of this community and others through their online storytelling Epooq.
In Finnish as well as English, the site explains how multimedia tools can be used to blend voice, pictures, text and video in a story-telling activity. The site reflects the thought process of narratives by showcasing tools and features for storytelling around specific incidents, historical significance and personal memory keys.
Users can leverage individual media or cross-media formats. In addition to providing this useful service for individual users, the site adds a valuable and appreciated social component by sharing the online stories with other community members chosen by the user. The story timeline is the foundation for the narrative’s structure. New features can extend the utility of this service more.
Adding news, memories, pictures and movies is easy and fun and does not require special skills or literacy. Everyone can open a subject and upload or comment existing stories, thus creating a community of virtual friends or pieces of virtual storytelling. The jury of WSA 2011 also enjoyed sharing pictures and a video with a virtual “business card” on Epooq – just search for WSA!
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