FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact:
Kathy Bisbee, OurStory
650.691.1725
kathy@wisdomark.com
Users Find More Expressive Option to MySpace.com in OurStory
New Service Catalogs Photos and Videos Past and Present to Share with Friends
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – OurStory, a new online service where users collaborate to create, share and preserve life stories using photos and videos, recently announced their product launch at the prestigious DEMO ’07 Conference in Palm Desert, CA to positive reviews from attending press such as PC Magazine, USA TODAY and CBS News.
OurStory combines the best of blogging, photo sharing, digital storytelling, and family history. It uses a rich feature set that includes an interactive visual timeline, privacy controls, collaborative email requests and a library of over 2,000 prompting interview questions. OurStory content can be preserved online, backed up to a home computer and made into heirloom-quality books, CDs and DVDs.
While most social networking sites such as MySpace.com focus on adding "friends", OurStory encourages deeper sharing and a collaborative process of online storytelling among family, friends and groups.
OurStory member, Chloe B., found the site by searching for “blogging” and wrote her first entry that day. Within a few weeks, Chloe’s stories brought her entire circle of friends and family to OurStory. She said her group migrated to OurStory because the site felt more expressive, safer and generated more meaningful connections.
“Very few people actually read what you blog on MySpace. It’s not built for people to really connect,” she said. Chloe says she likes the new features of OurStory including the lifelong timeline, privacy circles, and private messaging to her connections. “I like the fact that I can write one story at a time, save stories in the draft option and upload photos. I don’t need to write everything all at once.”
Some of the major features of OurStory.com include:
• A Lifelong Timeline: Once and for all, OurStory’s drag and drop, visual timeline easily collects and organizes any milestone, event, moment or memory. Enter stories with photos and videos in any order and the timeline sequences them chronologically.
• Collaborative Storytelling and Interviewing: Users can share multimedia stories with family and friends, gather comments and photos and exchange “life-interview” questions. Members can also work together to collect a group history with photos, comments and videos.
• Private and Secure: Connected to private circles of family and friends, users decide who can see each entry, and who can add photos and stories to their timeline.
• Preserve Living History: At any time, free downloadable software allows the user to import a copy of the complete timeline collection to a home computer for local backup. Heirloom books, CDs and DVDs can be created as gifts or mementos that document special events, births, memorials, anniversaries or family biographies. Books start at $13.95, and orders are fulfilled in five to seven business days.
Andy Halliday, CEO/Founder of OurStory shared his inspiration for starting OurStory, “Family tradition, daily events and personal history are captured in the stories we tell about our lives. But these are often lost or forgotten. At OurStory we set out to involve everyone in a fun and engaging process that uses the latest innovations on the web to make sharing and preserving important photos, thoughts, and memories easy, beautiful, and rewarding.”
About OurStory
OurStory is an online service where family and friends share and preserve photos, videos, and stories from life, organized in lifelong interactive timeline. OurStory is a full-featured free service on the web with a premium subscription for $39.95 (USD) per year that adds features such as multiple profiles and timelines, unlimited privacy circles, style embellishment, and discounts on books and CD/DVDs.
Founded by Andy Halliday and Chris Lunt in June of 2005, OurStory is funded by Benhamou Global Ventures, El Dorado Ventures and Venrock Associates. OurStory’s free online service is available at www.ourstory.com.