March 2008 – Page 2 – Journalistopia

100 interactive map ideas

So have you perchance been sitting at your desk pondering what your next great interactive map is going to be? Mike Pegg at the always-excellent Google Maps Mania blog has you covered.

Mike put together a list some time ago of “100 Things to do with Google Maps Mashups“. The ideas here cover calculating taxi fare, finding a public toilet, getting cheap gas and even determining which way to face to pray toward Mecca.

The best part is that much of these ideas use data that your news site probably already collects or that is readily available to the public. Also, don’t rule out the value of soliciting community contributions either…

[100 Things to do with Google Maps mashup]

Audio from Future of Web Apps Miami available

Just got an e-mail letting me know that audio from the Future of Web Apps Miami conference is available. Woot!

For us online news types, these talks are a great chance to get exposed to what’s happening in web technology and to think about how we can apply it to our situation.

These were the talks I thought were the best IMHO:

Cal Henderson from Flickr talks about the software development process and gives boatloads of excellent advice you need to hear if you’re developing applications.

Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV talks about the importance of passion in growing a community (this one really applies to news sites).

Kevin Marks from Google talks about Google’s OpenSocial and the future of social networking.

Blaine Cook from Twitter talks about the future of Twitter and its architecture.

Leah Culver from Pownce talks about opening your web app to the masses (something news sites need to get better at, without jeopardizing their revenue that is..)

Internet Explorer 8 Beta released

Just a quick need-to-know: Microsoft has made available the first public beta of the new Internet Explorer 8.

If you’re a designer for your news site, you’ll want to become familiar with the new browser as soon as you can and start looking at potential problem areas with your site’s design (though keep in mind that IE8 is still in beta). IE8 is touted as being very standards-compliant, so hopefully this’ll be the beginning of less CSS headaches for everyone. If you’re interested in more of the nitty gritty details of how IE8 works under the hood, check out the official IEBlog.

[More: Internet Explorer 8 download page]

Trains and trends: the web in 2008

Design blog Information Architects has created a fantastically cool visualization of 2008’s biggest web trends, all pinned to a map of Tokyo’s train system. I know; it sounds strange. But it really is quite awesome. Soon as I get to work this a.m., yours truly is printing this out and tacking it to my offi …er… cubicle wall.

Check out the clickable version and the PDF A4-sized version.

List: News organizations using Twitter

Twitter, the microblogging application that’s taken the geek world by storm, seems to have grown quite popular with news organizations.

Check out this great list from Carlos Granier-Phelps of media outlets throughout the world that are now using Twitter. The list includes media organizations from South America, Europe, the U.S. and more. [Tip o’ the hat to Andy Dickinson]

[UPDATE: Bill Couch points out in the comments that there’s a great list here too.]

Take a few minutes to scope out what other news orgs are up to on Twitter. Some, like the New York Times, have set up feeds that instamatically post new news to Twitter. Some, like OrlandoSentinel.com, post just the big breaking news. And others have been microblogging the election and branding Twitter feeds to particular reporters.

And if you haven’t already, make sure to grab your site’s name on Twitter before somebody else does!

[A List of News Organizations using Twitter]