Using WordPress as Digital Scrapbook

At one point during WordCamp 2007, there was a woman sitting in one of the front rows who explained that she was using WordPress as a blog to capture moments in her niece’s life. I thought, how cool is that! WordPress could be used like a digital scrapbook.Back in the day, my mom kept scrapbooks for both my sister and I, with great photos, art projects, programs, etc.  But times are different, and in this day and age with many times both parents working, it’s even more difficult.  I’m a digital parent, and while that’s no excuse, it’s hard to fit time in for keeping an up-to-date scrapbook of all the projects that come home from day care, let alone keep up with the daily grind.

And I’ve got content–but how to organize it and what to do with all of it?That’s where I think WordPress can fill a void in this regard.  Creating posts in WordPress allows individual moments to be collected and captured in a timeline fashion.  Then, throw in some plugins that manage audio, photo, and videos, and you have a great way to not only capture a summary of the events using words, but with content.

There are definitely privacy concerns to think about.  You may not want to put your life happenings online for everyone to see, but this can be handled with using the user registration feature in WordPress.  At the same time, this also allows you to grant access to those family members and friends who you do want to have access.

Using plugins such as PodPress would be a great way to incorporate audio and video clips.  For pictures, there are a plethora of plugins available, and some are as easy as pointing to a Flickr feed which many people may already be using.  There are also many Google inline map plugins where you could add a marker of destinations of events such as trips and vacations.  Create a couple of information bubbles, throw some content or links inside, and pretty soon you can see where WordPress can become a very powerfull tool when it comes to capturing special moments in life.

Although using WordPress as a scrapbook, digital or otherwise, is not a magic bullet, it does have appeal as to its options, especially as to plugins. With the availability and easy to use plugins, you could almost incorporate any type of recorded media as a historical record of the event.  Not only can you share your story with current friends and family, the hope is that some day it can work as a historical reference to memorable events.