How Can I Share My Media For Free on the Internet Forever?

Today I will show you every step you need to take in order to publish your media on Archive.org through Ourmedia.org for free forever.

Introducing The Internet Archive

This is an amazing system. I am talking about the internet archive located on the web at Archive.org. You can read more about what the archive is, how it came to be, and how people use it here. For the purposes for which we are gathered here today, it suffices to say that the IA (Internet Archive) exists to preserve universal access to human knowledge for perpetuity. They accept many different types of submissions including movies, software, and any other type of digitized data. They do have limits to what they will accept, but personal media like we are discussing today is well within their scope.

Introducing OurMedia.org

In order to post and organize media, we will use another free service to interface with the Internet Archive. That service is called OurMedia. It is a non-profit that truly is what it claims to be, "The Global Home for Grassroots Media." The purpose of OurMedia.org is to offer an easy to use interface for Archive.org. This interface is friendly and feature rich for the demanding user. The OurMedia interface provides a number of additional options including a blog, interest groups, categorization, and forums. It is a remarkable time that we live in that a service like this exists.

Here are the steps for you to follow. I recommend that you follow all of these steps today, right now. It will only take you a few minutes, and you will gain a truly remarkable capability in the process.

Step 1. Sign up for an account at the Internet Archive.

Visit the Archive.org sign up page here.
Caution: Make sure to use an email address that you check regularly, and that you are willing to share with the public. For your screen name, choose something that represents you, perhaps an abbreviation of your name, or the screen name from your instant messaging application.

Hit the "Get Library Card Button" when you have completed the application.

Step 2. Sign up for an account at Oumedia.org

Visit the Ourmedia.org sign up page here.

Caution: Be sure to use the same username and e-mail address that you entered for your account on Archive.org. This will make it easier for you. The same password would probably be helpful to, for memory purposes.

Optional: You can edit the personal Profile information at a later date.

Step 3. Check your e-mail to insure that your Ourmedia.org registration was successful.

The email from OurMedia will be sent from info@ourmedia.org. Check to make sure the password is the same as the one you entered.

Step 4. Log in to Ourmedia.org

Go Ourmedia.org and you will see the login boxes in the upper right hand corner. Enter your login information.

Step 5. Configure your Ourmedia.org account to publish to Archive.org.

Here are the steps to update the settings in your OurMedia account.

From any page, follow the link at the left hand side of the page called "My Page."

Now you should be on your OurMedia.org account home page. There should be a picture placeholder there with a question mark, and the title of the page should be your login name.

Right under the login name you will see an edit tab. Click on the "Edit" Link at the top of the page.

This is the account settings page. The second section on the page is titled "Internet Archive." It says "Your archive.org account password:

Enter your archive.org password in this box. This password will be used to automatically publish your media on archive.org.

Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and tap the "Submit" button to save your update.

Step 5. Test it!

After you hit the Submit button you will be sent back to your front page.

In the link list on the left side of the page, follow the link to "Publish my Media."

For this demonstration, I recommend that you quickly create a document in your favorite text editor. Save it to your desktop as "Test.txt" or "Test.doc."

On the Publish my media page you will see that you have the option to publish a number of different types of media. In this example, we will publish our text.

Select the link "Text."

I enter the title: "Test Publishing"
I find the file on my desktop: test.txt
I don't see a category for Test, so I add it in, calling it "test publication"
I enter the Author: "Alex Rollin"
I enter a description of the work: "This is a test of the account to publish to archive.org."
I don't see a test keyword. In the "Add to Keywords" Section I write: "Test"

The rest of attributes on this screen are optional, but some can be very important where they concern the legal rights someone has to create from your work. You might take a moment to glance at them now, and later on visit the OurMedia.org page dedicated to helping you understand the licensing options that are available on OurMedia.org.

Closer to the bottom of the page you also have an opportunity to add in other information about your publication, and additional notes. The notes will show up on the page that describes the media. I will add in "This is a proof of concept."

I then hit the submit button at the bottom of the page.

Step 6. View your work!

After submitting your work in the previous step, you will be taken to the homepage for your publication. This page is specific to OurMedia.org and contains the relevant descriptive information that someone might like to have when the visit your work on the internet: Title, Description, License Information, Notes, etc.

You can view the test example on OurMedia.org here: http://www.ourmedia.org/node/126567 I got this link from the address bar in my browser window. If you want people to see information about the piece of media, then send them this link.

At the top of the page you will also see "This media file's URL: Link"

This is an important link, and is different than the OurMedia.org media page link, http://www.ourmedia.org/node/126567, because this link, where it says "This media file's URL: Link" is a link directly to the file that is hosted on Archive.org.

Here is what that link looks like: http://www.archive.org/download/Test_Publishing/test.txt

If you follow this link you will be taken directly to the piece of media. In this case, you will see the text document rendered in the browser.

Depending on what kind of media you are using, and how you want to present it, knowing the difference between these two types of links is very important.
Feeds from http://rollin.us ... a blurred line between self and other always makes for a fun conversation...if...you...ask...me(me?). Contact me(me?) at alex at rollin dot us or skype me at discursives