The study of human nature and emotions through digital storytelling is an area that holds tremendous fascination for me. Which is why I co-founded Dsplaced.com in 2008. Dsplaced is an exploration of human belonging via text, video and visuals. I created this deck to help me keep track of and maintain an alphabetical directory of similar on-going digital storytelling projects and websites. Please send me any links to other projects or websites that you think should be in this deck: jinal@jinalshah.com

1. DIGITAL STORYTELLING
by, JINAL SHAH
www.constantbeta.com

2. digital storytelling
The study of human nature and emotions through digital storytelling is an area
that holds tremendous fascination for me.
Sharing information on the internet has become second nature to us - and
often we don’t pay attention or we forget that every wistful facebook status
update we make, or every photograph we share, intertwines with each other
and becomes a part of a scattered, collective history.
I created this deck* to help me keep track of the on-going projects and
websites that are celebrating these random yet magical stories by
aggregating, curating and/or creating them and turning them into pieces of
art. Send me any additional sites you know that should be in this collection.
Thanks,
Jinal
Co-founder, Dsplaced
* Organized Alphabetically

3. digital storytelling
DEAR GOD
Global project for people to share their innermost hopes- and fears- through prayer
What it does: Shares voluntarily submitted prayers by people all over the world on the site.
Impact: Paints a poignant yet beautiful tapestry of an individual’s desire for hope.
/ www.dear-god.net

4. digital storytelling
DSPLACED
An exploration of human belonging. / Jinal Shah & Mansi Trivedi
What it does: Through voluntary submissions, Dsplaced illuminates our relationship to our homes,
to a city, a country or even oneself.
Impact: The resulting collection of short stories, quotes, videos and photographs paints an
expressive portrait of not-completely-understood and confused feelings about an individual’s
idea of home and belonging.
/ www.dsplaced.com

5. digital storytelling
HITOTOKI
An online literary project collecting
stories of singular experiences tied
to locations in cities worldwide.
/ Paul Baron, Craig Mod & Chris
Palmieri
What it does: Publishes stories about
a singular moment or an experience
by outsiders visiting a new city.
Impact: The result is a database of
millions of human feelings that can
be searched and sorted across
number of demographic slices.
/ www.hitotoki.com

6. digital storytelling
LOVELINES
An exploration of human desire / Jonathan Harris & Sep Kamvar
What it does: Through large scale blog analysis, Lovelines illustrates the emotional landscape
between love and hate via text and images. “Construed entirely from found artifacts - words
and pictures posed to blogs - Lovelines draws its identity from a world of strangers brought
together by shared degrees of desire.
Impact: Interesting visual representation of the two most universal and extreme feelings of love
and hate and all the grey shades in between.
/ www.love-lines.org

7. digital storytelling
OPEN SOUND NEW ORLEANS
Sound mapping project for the City of New Orleans
What it does: An act of preservation of the New Orleans public culture. New Orleanians
participate by recording the important sounds and voices in their lives.
Impact: The unedited compendium of sounds and stories add an unusual and unexpected
flavor, giving the listener a truly 360 experience of New Orleans, without actually being there.
/ www.opensoundneworleans.org

8. digital storytelling
SMITH MAGAZINE
Celebrates the joy of storytelling,
especially 6-word memoirs
/ Larry Smith
What it does: Site users can
directly submit a story to any of
Smith magazine’s on-going story
projects
Impact: A democratic, rich and
passionate environment
personifying the word
participatory media. The Six-
word memoirs have been turned
into published collections by
Harper-Perennial.
/ www.smithmag.net

9. digital storytelling
STORY CORPS
Ordinary people interview their friends
and family thus creating a portrait of who
we really are as Americans/ Dave Isay
What it does: The heart of StoryCorps is
the conversation between two people
who are important to each other: a son
asking his mother about her childhood,
an immigrant telling his friend about
coming to America Etc.
Impact: A rich and diverse collection of
videos that together become an
extraordinary piece of oral history. The
experience of recording a story for this
project is extraordinarily fulfilling and
therapeutic for all participants.
/ www.storycorps.net

10. digital storytelling
WE FEEL FINE
An exploration of human emotion on a global scale. / Jonathan Harris & Sep Kamvar
What it does: Searches blog entries that mention, “I feel” or “I am feeling,” identifies the feeling
in the phrase and represents the montage of feeling in a playful and visual manner.
Impact: The result is a database of millions of human feelings that can be searched and sorted
across number of demographic slices.
/ www.wefeelfine.org

11. digital storytelling
SIMILAR PROJECTS:
Other projects like Found magazine,
Grocery Lists, 43 Things and Group Hugs
collect slices of individual dreams,
aspirations and daily lives (lost items, lost
grocery lists, goals, confessions) to
collectively tell a story.

12. JINAL SHAH
Thank you