You’re driving west near Mt. Hood, Oregon. The road to Portland is clear in front of you, but a knowledgeable local in the car shares a little secret. Turn off the highway on a side road wending through the towering pines and you’ll approach the magnificent Timberline Lodge. You’ll know it on sight, though you’ve never been here before: the Overlook Hotel from The Shining.
This is the magic of location media: storytelling pinned to a certain latitude and longitude that, with the help of the internet and GPS, plays back at just the right moment.
Location media has been around for years, and many talented people create more of it every day. But most potential listeners have never heard of it, let alone tried it. Why couldn’t these stories be easier to find while driving or walking around someplace new?
At Spooler, we recognize that discovering great stories by location is too difficult. Much of location media is locked away in siloed apps, each with its own format and standards. In fact, the situation reminds us of episodic audio on the web before podcasting.
What helped catalyze podcasting? RSS 2.0, a simple but comprehensive publishing standard. So, to help jumpstart location media, we propose OSLO.
OSLO
OSLO (Open Standard for LOcation Media) makes it easy to share location-based content. We built and tested it for our own projects, and we want to make it available for everyone, to encourage the development of more tools for location-based storytelling.
Creators can use simple tools to quickly create location-based media experiences like tours, scavenger hunts, games, and more. Because the format is open and flexible, all kinds of new experiences are possible to easily create.
Developers can build tools for the creation, distribution and consumption of location-based media, knowing that a standard format will simplify their process.
Consumers will be able to discover and experience location-based content more easily. Under a single format, directories of available content could be built, which would greatly help users discover more content to enjoy.
A Few More Details
Like the podcast format, OSLO is a simple, readable file. While podcasting is built around the syndicated delivery of individual media files, OSLO’s core component is location. Starting from the location allows creators to shape an experience with more nuance and control.
Have a look at our draft specification. OSLO is available with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, so it’s free to use and build upon.