Ourmedia has relaunched with a minimalist look and new focus on media channels. There is now more emphasis on the social interaction around media and ways to draw attention to the good stuff. Here are some of the features available:
Channels @ channels.ourmedia.org
Channels are media streams categorized by subject or interest that include content such as music, podcasts and video. People can highlight media hosted anywhere on the Web and group media together into themes. Ourmedia members can now easily create their own social broadcast networks and post items to their channels using the special browser tools mentioned below. Each item is a bundled document of media data; on posting you simply enter the relevant details into the template fields and click submit. The fields include:
- Media URL
- Media Page URL (source)
- Thumbnail URL
- Screen Shot URL
- Artist Name
- Artist Homepage URL
- Comments URL
- License (option menu)
- Player (type)
Here’s an example that took just several minutes to create: Chill Channel
RSS FeedsAvailable feeds are split across two domains, with the new user-created channels residing at channels.ourmedia.org.
Ourmedia.org
Has four main channels that are currently enabled for media streaming:
Channels.ourmedia.org
All user-created channels have RSS feeds although at the time of writing these were not media-enabled for streaming files via widgets. Hopefully this will change as the new features are rolled out.
Browser ToolsToolbar Buttons - Let you post and view channels from within your browser.
Two bookmarklets can be dragged to your browser bookmarks toolbar:
- Post to Ourmedia Channels - This button allows you to post your current page to your Ourmedia channels.
- My Ourmedia Channels - This button allows you to quickly view your Ourmedia channels.
These provide a useful way to populate your Channels with media just discovered or when revisiting favorite sites.
Open Media Search
Located at the top left-hand corner of all ourmedia.org pages is the new Google powered search engine. This makes it easy to search for ‘open’ media by source, media type and license. Searchable domains include:
Creative SupportThe Learning Center provides help with key aspects of media creation and distribution through a series of how-to guides and tutorials. Everything is published under Creative Commons.
The Open Media Directory is a list of free and legal media hubs, highlighting cool sources of audio, music and video that’s safe to share or remix. The list may be republished under the CC license terms, an example being the recent Creative Commons UK Mix and Mash Film Competition which used it to provide support for Video Resources.
Putting Ourmedia to WorkAlong with the social functionality of Ourmedia, the features I’ve outlined above make it easy for people to create and share legal media in an open environment.
The Search Engine and Open Media Directory both help you locate free and legal media which in turn can be posted directly to your Channels using the browser buttons. Overall a clean and tidy package without all the clutter and commercialization of other media sharing destinations.
Related DISS Media
Free Sounds - Legal Audio Samples, Loops, Software, Music and Video Downloads.
OpenSonics - Open Music Community News and Copyleft Media Resources.
Open Music Search - A Google Custom Search Engine for exploring the Open Music Ecosystem. Grab the widget and spread free music!
