:Journalistopia

Just announced: 2008’s Webby Award winners! The Webby Awards picks through the best of the Web and grants awards in more categories than you can shake a stick at.

I’ve pored through the list and extracted the winners from news-related categories, as well as news organizations that won in other categories, such as science or best practices. Here’s the Journalistopia-edited list. Apologies in advance if I missed anyone:

Best Copy/Writing
Wired.com
http://www.wired.com
(Also nominated: HowStuffWorks, Design Observer, NYTimes.com and Slate)

Best Use of Photography
Your Shot - National Geographic Magazine
http://ngm.com/yourshot

Blog - Business
FT.com Alphaville
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/

Blog - Political
The Huffington Post
http://huffingtonpost.com

Broadband
ABC.com Full Episode Player
http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streami…

Magazine
National Geographic Magazine Online
http://ngm.com
(Also nominated: Dwell.com, Makezine, NYMag, Yoga Journal Yoga Journal)

Music
BBC Radio 1 Meet the DJs
http://agencyrepublic.net/awards/…

News
NYTimes.com
http://nytimes.com/
(Also nominated: BBC News, Wired, CNN and Discovery News)

Newspaper
NYTimes.com
http://nytimes.com/
(Also nominated: The Guardian, the Independent, the Wall Street Journal and Variety)

Radio
BBC World Service channel site
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/

Science
nature.com
http://www.nature.com

Sports
Yahoo! Sports
http://sports.yahoo.com/
(Also nominated: ESPN.com, Nike Skateboarding, Spyker F1 Magazine, Sweet Spots)

Television
HBO Voyeur
http://www.hbovoyeur.com

VIDEO CATEGORIES

Best Use of Animation/Motion Graphics
The New York Times/T: The New York TImes Style Magazine “Circle Squared”
http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/20…

Best Writing
Onion News Network
http://tv.theonion.com

Documentary: Individual Episode
Coney Island: An Uncertain Future
Getty Images
http://www.rickgershon.com/gettyi…

News and Politics: Individual Episode
Finding the Way Home
MediaStorm
http://mediastorm.org/0017.htm

Travel (video)
Frugal Traveler: American Road Trip - NYTimes.com/Video
http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_s…

MOBILE

Entertainment (mobile)
Cosmo Mobile: 100 Hot Cities, Fake Calls, Dude Decoder & Cocktails!
http://m.cosmopolitan.com

Listing and Updates (mobile)
The New York Times Mobile Real Estate Listings
http://m.nytimes.com/re

News (mobile)
Mobile NYTimes
http://mobile.nytimes.com

Sports (mobile)
ESPN.com (Wireless)
http://mobileapp.espn.go.com/wire…

ALSO: Shoutouts to NYTimes.com for their best practices and best visual design/function nominations, Mama Trib’s Swamp blog for best political blog nomination, National Geographic for their best home page People’s Voice award, Consumer Reports for their Guides/Ratings/Review People’s Voice award, the Guardian and Onion for their podcasts nominations, NPR for their politics nomination, NPR and the BBC for their religion and spirituality nominations, Frontline World for their Documentary: Series and Documentray: Individual nominations, U.S. News and World Report for their Best Writing (video) nomination, the New Yorker’s animated cartoons for their animation nomination, CBS for their sports (video) nomination and many more.

Yep, no news site nominees in the navigation and structure categories. We’ll have to work on that…

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37Signals today highlighted an uber-useful Mac OS X Automator script that pings the Newseum’s repository of newspaper front PDFs and combines them into a single PDF for your viewing pleasure.

If that doesn’t make printing out and talking trash about your competitors’ A1 choices at the daily news meeting a breeze, I don’t know what does!

[37Signals - Newseum Automator script]

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Head on over to the conference site for South by Southwest (SXSW) for free video from the media and entertainment conference. You’ll want to particularly peruse the Interactive Coverage. And yes, the much-maligned Zuckerberg/Lacy interview is there too.

I wasn’t one of the fortunate souls who made it out to Texas for the conference, so if you have any specific recommendations on what to watch, do share in the comments.

And to think I just got Netflix this weekend, and I’ll be spending a couple of hours watching tiny pixelated videos of guys talking about media nerd stuff…

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I just love it when someone does the work for me of compiling awesome tutorials. Check out this list of 80 Photoshop text tutorials that covers everything from text written in the sand to the Superman effect.

And yes, these are great for the display type on those interactive graphics I was just writing about. While you’re at it, check out this huuuuuuge collection of totally free Photoshop brushes.

[Via Lifehacker and Planet of the Web]

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Smashing Magazine has produced an excellent list of some of the best data visualization examples on the Web today (hat tip to Melissa Worden). Examine each of these visualizations closely because you’re looking at the first step in the future of your news site’s Flash graphics. Though these particular graphics are a little trippy for your average reader, such experimentation should yield sweet results for mainstream design. You’ll see many of the same principles at work in this New York Times‘ campaign finance graphic.

Now I’m going to make a prediction here that news sites will somewhat move away from using Flash as a tool for packaging different story elements (video, slideshows, text, photos, the kitchen sink, etc.) and more toward using the data manipulation capabilities of Flash to produce rich infographics.

What I love about these data-backed graphics is that a reader can “play” with the graphic and truly interact with it. The more the graphic allows manipulation from the user, the longer she’ll stick around. If you’re a designer who has only been using Flash as a shell to hold content, push the envelope with some XML files powering your Flash graphics.

What the heck are you waiting for? Here’s a good video tutorial from Flashmastah Ray Villalobos on how to use XML and Flash, as well as many more Flash and XML resources at Kirupa and advice from Mindy McAdams. Gowan, getouttahere!

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Below is a roundup of links to interesting infographics, maps, databases and other types of interactive coverage of the Minneapolis bridge collapse. Also, IRE has an excellent set of bridge-related resources.

(NOTE: I’ve updated the list a few times with more links from people who’ve written in; many thanks.)

New York Times
Interactive graphic with step-by-step look at how the collapse occurred

USAToday
Map of the collapse site and a historical look at other major bridge collapses

Washington Post
Interactive graphic analyzing each portion of the destruction

St. Paul Pioneer Press
Community-contributed photos | Audio slideshow

Miami Herald
Interactive mashup map of South Florida bridges in poor condition

Palm Beach Post
Searchable database of Florida bridges

Cleveland Plain-Dealer
Interactive map of state showing deficient bridges by county | Searchable database of all Ohio bridges | Interactive state-by-state map of U.S. showing deficient bridges

Des Moines Register
Searchable database of Iowa bridges

Orlando Sentinel
Interactive mashup map of Central Florida bridges in poor condition

The Oregonian
Interactive mashup map of structurally deficient bridges in Oregon

St. Petersburg Times
Flash graphic with map, statistics and bridge construction graphics

MSNBC
Interactive Flash map of state-by-state deficient bridge tallies

Wikipedia
Community-edited article about the bridge

Legacy.com
Guest book for Minneapolis bridge victims

Florida Today
GIS-based map of all Brevard County bridges

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Great job opportunity here in Orlando for a Flashionista:

The Orlando Sentinel is seeking a senior artist to report and illustrate information graphics for print and online. Our recent newsroom restructuring is complete, and we’re looking for a seasoned visual leader to shape the world ahead.

Candidates must be fluent in Adobe’s Creative Suite and have at least an intermediate knowledge of Flash. ArcView or 3D animation skills are plus.

This is a leadership position, so candidates should be comfortable interfacing with top editors on a daily basis. Senior artists are responsible for defining the high-end of the department’s capabilities and taking the lead on long-term projects. They also run the department in the absence of its manager, Todd Stewart.

The Sentinel’s visual journalists work in a collaborative, collegial environment, and our top editors encourage imagination by applauding innovation. See what we’ve been doing lately at:

http://snipr.com/1njka
and http://www.orlandosentinel.com/broadband/

Want to hear more? Send your resume and examples of your best explanatory thinking to:

Bonita Burton, AME/Visuals
Orlando Sentinel
633 N. Orange Ave.
Orlando, FL 32801-2833

Or drop me an email: bburtonATorlandosentinel.com

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Newsdesigner.com has an excellent roundup of front pages, both in the U.S. and international, of the Virgina Tech massacre. Make sure to take a look at the Collegiate Times‘ touching treatment of the story and see what designers everywhere are saying about the coverage.

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More details emerge about the Poynter Institute’s much-heralded Eyetrack 2007 study after a week-long seminar in St. Petersburg, Fla.

From the article:

“It turns out [readers] will stay even longer when reading online. The editors were also pleased to hear that the extra work of providing lively, illustrated teasers or telling stories in a graphic package pays off by attracting extra reader attention.

On the other hand, the finding that the 600 readers tested in the study regularly read jumps was unexpected.”

Make sure to browse through Poynter’s other content, including a series of audiocasts, as well as a history of the study and a video about this year’s study.

The study found the following results based on the preliminary release:

1) The largest percentage of story text read was higher online (77%) than in broadsheet (62%) or tabloid (57%) formats.

2) Print readers are more methodical, while online readers scan more by a margin of about 25%.

3) Sidebars, lists and QandAs boost reader understanding.

4) Online readers are drawn to navigational elements and teasers. Print readers are drawn to large headlines and photos.

5) Documentary-style photos get lots of attention. Staged photos, not so much.

More at Poynter’s ‘The Myth of Short Attention Spans.’

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The non-profit Poynter Institute has just released the preliminary results of its Eyetrack 2007 study, and some of the findings may be surprising to those who think online readers merely speed through news sites.

From the Poynter article, titled ‘The Myth of Short Attention Spans’:

Readers select stories of particular interest and then read them thoroughly.

And there’s a twist: The reading-deep phenomenon is even stronger online than in print.

At a time when readers are assumed to have short attention spans, especially those who read online, this qualifies as news.

That was the predominant behavior of roughly 600 test subjects — 70 percent of whom said they read the news in print or online four times a week. Their eye movements were tracked in 15-minute reading sessions of broadsheet, tabloid and online publications.

The study’s overview found that:

1) The largest percentage of story text read was higher online (77%) than in broadsheet (62%) or tabloid (57%) formats.

2) Print readers are more methodical, while online readers scan more by a margin of about 25%.

3) Sidebars, lists and QandAs boost reader understanding.

4) Online readers are drawn to navigational elements and teasers. Print readers are drawn to large headlines and photos.

5) Documentary-style photos get lots of attention. Staged photos, not so much.

Poynter will be releasing a book in June with more details about the study, including the materials used. They’re also organizing a workshop for August regarding the 2007 Eyetrack study.

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Needing a quick color scheme for your site? Or, perhaps you don’t own a color wheel nor have the expertise to use one well.

Enter the plethora of nifty online color palette generators. The latest and most AJAXy of them all is the new Colorjack. Make sure to click the sphere link. Colorjack also features a desktop widget for Mac users. [Via Download Squad]

My favorite color palette Web site to this date has been the WellStyled.com Color Genrator 2. There’s also the 4096 Color Wheel and the simpler PaletteMan.

And if your favorite isn’t listed here, you know what to do.

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Can visualizing data help us save the world?

Hans Rosling, a professor of international health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute seems to think so. Rosling is the founder of Gapminder, a non-profit venture that aims to make use of the many scattered databases kept by NGOs, governments and businesses in order to improve the understanding of world health.

And what are the tools he uses? Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, XML, PHP/MySql — the same stuff we use in newsrooms. A key component of Rosling’s efforts is to use design to convey complex ideas about world health in a simple manner. And isn’t that what we try to do every day at work?
Watch Rosling’s amazing performance at the TED conference, where he brings infographics about human development trends to life. This guy is like the John Madden of statistics. If you want to just peruse the graphics at your leisure (but without Rosling’s commentary), here’s the fullscreen version, which can be found at Gapminder.

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