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MediascapesOnTheMscapeWebsite
Mediascapes on the mscape website
On the mscape website, under teh 'browse' heading, there is a collection of mediascapes that are free for you to download and use. It is growing all the time as people add new ones to it. If you have made a mediascape that you think is good then you too could add it to the collection and get feedback from other people that use it.
Mediascape fields
Each mediascape entry on the mscape website has the following items of information.
Title, Short description, Long description
These three are text based items of progressively greater length. You can think of the ‘short description’ as a brief summary of the mediascape while ‘long description’ gives all the details.
An image
The design can select an image to accompany the mediascape, they are free to submit any image they want so this could be an interesting way to get an insight into the designers style!
Set up instructions
Some mediascapes are simple to use, others may require more detailed setting up. Hopefully the resulting experience will be worth the extra work. This field carries information about setting up the designer’s mediascape.
Web site
This is an associated web address. It could be the web site corresponding to the mediascape's location or the designer's home page.
Tags
Many online systems use tagging as a means of organising collections. The mscape website does so to. If you are not familiar with them just think of them as keywords about the mediascape.
Tags are words chosen by the designer to describe the type and scope of their mediascape. These tags allow designers to quickly classify their work and they allow you to search through the entire collection on the mscape website.
Tags also include information about the location of the mediascape, so this is the field to search on if you are looking for mediascapes associated with a particular place that you are going to visit.
Credits
Designers may have used material from other sources and they may want to acknowledge that here. They may also have taken an existing mediascape and built upon it to create a new experience, that too is acknowledged in this field. They can also give credit to those invovled in the production of the mediascape. Web addresses may be added to this information.
Category
This field indicates if the medaiscape is anchored (fixed to one place in the world) or portable (can be deployed anywhere where there is enough space for them.)
Ranking (automatic ranking system)
As people search for mediascapes and download them the mscape website keeps track of how often this is all happening and for which mediascapes. The results give an indication of which mediascapes are the most popular and these can be gathered together for your consideration.
Rating (given by users)
The rating is different to the ranking as it is based on users expressing an opinion about it, users are able to award marks for how good the mediascape was once they have downloaded and used it. These ratings also give rise to a table of mediascapes where you can browse the topmost ones.
If you think of films as an analogy then ranking is like the audience figures, and rating is what the reviewers think of it.
License
This is the type of license that governs the use of the mediascape by members of the public. For further details on licensing see
Finding mediascapes
When you visit the mscape website to download a mediascape you can find a mediascape there in a number of ways:
By searching
There is a comprehensive search facility that allows you to search on most of the fields given in the list above.
By external reference
A friend or a colleague may send you a direct web address for a particular mediascape on the mscape website.
By being featured on the mscape website
The mscape website includes references to mediascapes that are specially featured. For example they are new additions to the mscape website, they are highly popular or they are topical for that day.
Adapting an anchored mediascape to work in your locality
There are many mediascapes available on the mscape web site that are fixed to be used in a certain area. If you want to try them out you could go to that area, but if this is far away then it is possible to download the mediascape and adapt it to work in your own area. You could try out a guided tour of Venice in the park behind your apartment for example.
To do this you need to read
the instructions here.
