Broadcastr “is a social media platform for location-based stories. It enables the recording, indexing, listening, and sharing of audio content. Just like in human memory, every story is bound to a place.” Broadcastr simplifies the process of recording your story, allowing you to easily peg it to a location on the map and discovering other shared stories. Currently the service is in beta, but they were quick to send me an invitation when I signed up.

A brief look at the platform shows stories from all over the world, from the rescue response to the tsunami in Japan to a story about George Moscones’s time as mayor in San Francisco. The site adds the context of location and the emotion of human events heard through voice, which isn’t always reflected though the written word, lending greater meaning to a story or a movement.

So how does it work? It’s simple actually. Either click the ‘record’ button in the upper left corner or the ‘Add a Story’ button in the upper right corner. You will then see a screen that will allow you to record your voice through the microphone in your computer in Step 1, add general information about your story in Step 2…

…and pin it to a location on the map in Step 3:

After you’ve pinned the recording, this is what it will look like on the map –

Using the ‘More’ and ‘Edit’ links, you review and change your meta descriptions if necessary. If you were to do a search for opengov or savethedata, this is what the results would like like on the map –

This platform, even with its weaknesses and quirks, has the potential to add interesting, dynamic context to the stories we share online. Do you have an opengov or savethedata story you want to share? Record it and pin it Broadcastr and we’ll highlight the best stories.