What is Freemix?

Freemix is a social networking site for digital content. Use Freemix to slice, show and rapidly share data with your colleagues and friends.

Using Freemix, you can easily transform data and create compelling Web pages with facets. You can easily mashup content in a list or a table, or on a map, timeline, scatter plot or pie chart.

Who uses Freemix?

Anyone who creates and analyzes data will quickly see the power of Freemix. Those who wish to share data with colleagues or in a group will find Freemix invaluable.

Whether you want to share spreadsheets with scientific findings or lists of artwork or photos in a more Web-friendly way, you can rapidly expose your content using Freemix. If you wish to securely and privately share data with only your family and friends, please contact solutions@zepheira.com, our partner for creating secure and custom solutions based on Freemix.

What kind of data can I import into Freemix?

For the moment, five types of files can be imported into Freemix: Comma-separated value files (CSV), BibTex files, Atom news feeds and Exhibit JSON files are supported formats. Simplistic Excel spreadsheets may also be used, but their proprietary format will not always import into Freemix.

Many users will prefer to upload comma-separated value files that are exported from spreadsheets or databases. Please note that some programs, particularly Microsoft Excel and Access, can produce inconsistent data during CSV export. Such data may need to be cleaned before it can be imported into Freemix.

BibTex files are often used by academics and publishers. They are perfect for publishing bibliographies.

Atom news feeds are published by many Internet services, such as Flikr, FriendFeed and del.icio.us. Using Atom to make Freemixes gives you a new way to display and track your Internet collections.

Exhibit JSON is the data format used by MIT's Simile Project. Developers wishing to create custom data feeds for import into Freemix can create Exhibit JSON from databases or other data sources and upload that information to Freemix. Exhibit JSON is a more descriptive and structured format than CSV.

Simplistic Excel spreadsheets may be used to get data into Freemix, but every version of Excel's proprietary format cannot be supported. By "simplistic", we mean that a single worksheet can have contiguous rows and columns that form a rectangle. This "rectangular spreadsheet" can have blank columns to the left and right and an optional title and subtitle at the top, as long as they are in single cells.

Best results will be obtained from data with less than 1,000 records, e.g. spreadsheets with less than 1,000 rows or BibTex files with less than 1,000 citations. Larger amounts of data will result in significant time delays or even a failure to load the data set.

Can I get my data out of Freemix?

Absolutely! However, Freemix does not store your original data files. You should always back up your original files and not rely on Freemix to store them for you.

Freemix stores a converted copy of your data in the JSON file format, augmented with some additional information used to make Freemixes. You can download your data in that format, in RDF/XML, semantic wikitext, tab-separated values, or Exhibit JSON.

Does Freemix copy my content?

Freemix stores a converted copy of your data in the JSON file format, augmented with some additional information used to make Freemixes. You can see exactly what Freemix stores by selecting the "JSON" link from a data profile visible on your Profile page.

How do I get started?

Freemix is offered as a software as a service, or SaaS, please go to to get started. There you can sign up, search profiles, invite someone to be your friend, make a tribe, join an existing tribe, and perform account management.

We make it easy on you. See the tutorial screencasts or the user guide available at /about/help/ to help you get started.

Where is Freemix hosted?

Freemix relies on the services of Rackspace, a San Antonio, Texas–based company that provides enterprise-level Web infrastructure and managed services to businesses of all sizes. Serving more than 10,000 customers through its six data centers worldwide, Rackspace integrates the industry’s best technologies to meet each customer’s needs, and it backs up its tools and services with a commitment that it calls Fanatical Support^tm

What are the System Requirements?

Freemix makes every attempt to support the following Web browsers: Microsoft Internet Explorer v.7 & 8, Firefox v.3.x and Safari v.3.x. Opera v.9.x, Camino v.1.6.x, Firefox v.2.x mostly work but are not as thoroughly tested and not officially supported. Internet Explorer v.6 does not work with some of the software used by Freemix and so we cannot support it.

Freemix currently supports the US English (en-US) locale. Internationalization efforts are underway.