Picture this

A couple of days ago someone tweeted about a new “social network” that allows you to upload old photos to their site and share with the ubiquitous family and friends. The tweet took me to the BBC Technology report; the app, Clixta (yeah, I know) was launching that day.

The idea is that by digitizing and sharing these pictures, you’re doing a lot more than getting them out of the shoebox at the back of the closet. You’re able to open up the past, getting comments and edits that flesh out what you know about those photos.

Eventually, these repositories of family and local pasts could be made available to historians and be a huge asset to our understanding of the world. Think of the alternative histories you could layer on to what the local planning council would like you to believe about a parcel of land they want to sell to developers. Or new generations of relatives that can now be visible to you, your kids and your grandkids

And, you can get help putting names, and eventually stories, to the faces. That's priceless.

Yeah, I have some concerns about privacy and uses that some entities could make of such a trove. It’s interesting that they started with the mobile app and claim to be working on a web browser interface. (Although their FAQs page promises “From Q4 2015 you’ll be able to upload directly from your Mac or PC using the new web browser based [sic] version of Clixta.” They might want to edit that.)

What I also find interesting is that in its web story, the BBC includes this photo/caption:

I got a little wound up trying to figure out what the hell, exactly, that caption means. Any thoughts?