Historypin Makes Mapping Urban Change Easy

Courtesy of Google: a not necessarily boring way of sharing the past.

Are you a fan of the past, and want to show the young ones what they're missing out? Or are you a believer in urban development, and want to show everyone just how far we've come? Historypin is a website that makes it easy to literally pin snapshots of the past onto Google Street View's picture of modern society. A picture after all is worth a thousand words, and less boring than those dreaded "When I was your age..." stories.

The website, created by We are What We Do with the help of Google, seeks to help generations connect. It wants to create a common bridge between people of different ages—it's all about location, location, location—and a space for annotations that tell the story of the past. And since it's all online, youngsters can check it all out when they want, wherever they want. Fake politeness for the sake of the elders and their tall tales may become a thing of the past.

Alas, as the whole platform runs on Google Street View, unfortunates with slow net connections need not bother. Seniors wanting to share their stuff will probably need help uploading photos as well.