DocNow Release 1.0


We are happy to announce the release of the DocNow V1.0, an application for appraising, collecting, and gathering consent for social media archives.



DocNow is an open source application built and maintained by the Documenting the Now community. There are three ways to use the tool - explore the options below to find which use case is right for you. We are continuing development of the tool and welcome your feedback. Thank you for joining our community of practice in ethical social media archiving!





Getting Started


Not sure where to start? Watch our demo video to learn how the app works. Follow the steps below to complete your social media archiving journey.

Step 1: Collect content with the DocNow App by activating a search. Set collection limits and explore insights as your collection grows.

Step 2: Download your archive from the DocNow App, which includes a Tweet Viewer, Tweet IDs, and media files.

Step 3: Hydrate your Tweet IDs from the archive's tweets.csv file back into full tweets using DocNow's Hydrator desktop application.

Step 4: Describe your collection and share your Tweet IDs with other researchers by adding them to the DocNow Catalog.


Ways to Use DocNow


1. Join Documenting the Now's hosted community instance.

We host a community instance of the DocNow application for anyone to use. It's a great way to get familiar with the tool before committing to running an instance yourself. Please make sure to read the terms of service when you sign up.

2. Run DocNow locally on your machine.

Have development skills? Looking to test the application, but not necessarily collect long-term? You can run DocNow locally on your computer by installing just a few packages.

3. Install your own instance in the cloud.

For production-level collecting and the ability to build out your own community of users and terms of service, you'll want to run your own DocNow instance in the cloud. We have instructions for a variety of cloud service providers and are looking for community input on further documentation.




Why use DocNow?


DocNow's features and technology were built with a community-centered ethic of care.

We built this tool slowly and intentionally, with community input along the way. We have released the tool freely, and share the open source code on GitHub for all to use and modify. We do ask that our users read and comply with our terms of service. In launching V1.0, we are seeking user feedback to assess how we can improve DocNow.