I have been digging into some research lately on interactive digital storytelling.
One fascinating site I’ve come across and am becoming increasingly engaged with is Cowbird. It is a subtle, simple, and charming site for telling stories online and engaging with a talented community of digital storytellers. It’s a wonderful kind of a socially driven digital library, workshop, and community centre.  

Cowbird’s non-profit, commercial free, and protective of user data. Cowbird features an undemanding platform where contributors post still images accompanied by original text, and sometimes sound. The site pushes away from the hyperactive and commercial laden sites of social activity, and it succeeds in many ways. Cowbird boasts incredibly engaging and intimate content that makes for some rewarding reading. And the creators have developed a unique environment that is remarkable pleasant to take part in; technological slow-food as founder Jonathan Harris puts it. Cowbird describes itself as the most beautiful place in the world to tell stories. Obviously a little bold, but Cowbird certainly might be the most beautiful place online.

Check out Cowbird at cowbird.com.

I will be investigating Cowbird, and how similar unmediated online spaces present new opportunities for participatory cultural production – what does this mean for users? audiences? and traditional media spaces?

Here’s a few write-ups about the platform to provide a little background:

Jennifer Preston in the NYT: Pull Up a Mouse and Stay a While

Susan Currie Sivek for Media Shift: How National Geographic Used Cowbird Storytelling Tool to Tell a Reservation’s Whole Story