MemoryMiner is an application used to organize and share digital media using a simple, yet powerful metaphor, namely "People, Places and Time." At its core, are a simple set of tools for treating photos as individual frames in a type of endless story board. A variety of other digital media, including sound, video, documents and URLs, can be added to each frame. The story elements are linked to each other by way of annotation layers identifying the people, places, dates and events captured in each frame, and can be exported for automatic publishing online.

MemoryMiner can be used for a variety of different purposes, from personal history and education through to art projects and marketing for business. Whatever your purpose, the process of creating and publishing a digital story with MemoryMiner is fundamentally the same:

1. Import images (simply by dragging and dropping from a folder or photo organizer like iPhoto)

2. Create of a list of relevant people and locations

3. Connect people and locations to images

4. Add descriptions to images

5. Attach other digital media to images

6. Select images for export (other relevant media will be automatically selected)

7. Export your photo-data package to a server of your choice (including .Mac)

8. View your digital story online

The GroupSmarts team is currently working on developing a set of network services that will link individual MemoryMiner libraries using the descriptive metadata that goes with story elements. This will be useful to help people find digital story elements securely and efficiently in order to fill in gaps they may have as they set about recording and publishing their personal histories and other stories.

If you'd like to find out more about the various ways you can use MemoryMiner, click here. If you'd like more information about the various features it has, click here. For feedback from reviewers and individuals, click here. You can download a trial version or buy MemoryMiner for Macintosh or MemoryMiner for Windows