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Browser Revolution: Shift the Web collaboratively

August 13, 2008 in tools

Indeed. ShiftSpace (pronounced: §) is an open source browser plugin for collaboratively annotating, editing and shifting the web.

shift-space Browser Revolution: Shift the Web collaboratively

It works like an open source layer above any website. It seeks to expand the creative possibilities currently provided through the web. ShiftSpace provides tools for artists, designers, architects, activists, developers, students, researchers, and hobbyists to create online contexts built in and on top of websites.

Features

Being a platform, ShiftSpace is built to be extended, and so it invites different features, developed by different individual developers and teams. There are currently two types of feature component families - Spaces and Plug-ins.

Spaces are metaweb applications - interfaces that work on top of any website. Spaces create shifts, think of spaces as programs and of shifts as documents. (if you want to create your own space, check the API and manual we created for space authoring).

Plug-ins are much more deeply involvedin the platform and provide features that different spaces and shifts can use. They are ways of expanding the platform itself rather than build things on top of the platform. Plug-ins can add functionality to the ShiftSpace console, to the shift-menu or even to the space developers api.

Usage

By pressing the [shift] + [space] keys, a ShiftSpace user can invoke a new meta layer above any web page to browse and create additional interpretations, contextualizations and interventions – which we call Shifts. Users can choose between several authoring tools we’re working to develop – which we call Spaces. Some are utilitarian (like Notes and Highlights) and some are more interventionist (like ImageSwap and SourceShift). Users will be invited to map these shifts into Trails. These trails can be used for collaborative research, curating netart exhibitions or as platforms for context-based public debates.

Notes is a Space that allows a ShiftSpace user to leave post-it annotations on websites. Highlights is one we’re still developing, which would allow a user to highlight text on the page. Some Spaces lead more naturally to an interventionist usage. Two such Spaces that we have implemented are ImageSwap, which allows a user to grab any image on the web and swap it in place of other image, and SourceShift, which allows users to freely edit a page’s HTML code.

When a user visits a modified (’Shifted’) webpage, the small ShiftSpace icon (§) pops up in the bottom left side of the screen. Pressing the [shift] + [space] keys reveals the ShiftSpace console. From the console, the user can browse through existing Shifts, choosing to enable those that might be of interest. Holding down the [shift] key shows a small contextual menu, allowing the user to create Shifts of her own. The user can then choose whether to share her Shifts or to keep them private.

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