All a Twitter

I swear I just nodded off for a moment but now that I'm awake everywhere I look online I find talk of Twitter. It's gone mainstream so fast even John Edwards is Twittering.

Twitter explains itself this way: "A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing? Answer on your phone, IM, or right here on the web!"

You send a message of no more than 140 characters when you're eating sushi, retching in a porcelain bowl or having sex with bats, it doesn't matter. Just let the world know. It's the ultimate expression of The Culture of Narcissism.

"True, on first glance it is a baffling and seemingly pointless service - but underneath it proves intriguing, useful and addictive for those who live on the move," contends the Guardian. "One observer called it 'the Seinfeld of the internet ... a website about nothing'."

There are already a host of Twitter add ons, which offer even more options for sending "tweets," as they're called, including by instant messenger, email and RSS. But the most addicting is Twittervision, where you see new tweets appear in real time on a world map.

"Twittervision is a hypnotic glimpse into the lives of people around the world. It's a complete waste of time, in the same way that conversation, casual sex, and reading are wastes of time," writes Nat Torkington on O'Reilly Radar. "It generates an amazing feeling of connection to what people are thinking of in the world (or at least in the primarily Western world that seems to be the Twitter customer base). This is a kind of ambient zeitgeist for the world and word of it is spreading like wildfire."

Here's my Twitter page. Now if we can just convince all of our sources to tweet all of the time, just in case we need to know where they are on deadline ...

Database of information graphics

Infovis offers "1200+ examples of information visualization."

The Parsons Institute for Information Mapping (PIIM) is building this searchable database of information graphics from visitor submissions and numerous repositories on the internet. It was begun as an internal resource for PIIM employees, as a purely academic endeavor (all sources are cited). Part of our research program is to classify these and other information graphics according to a taxonomy under development.

As the database has grown, we felt that it could serve as a generally useful resource. We are accepting submissions with the goal of establishing the most comprehensive, manually annotated (and taxonomically classified) information graphics database in the world.

Costhelper

Costhelper helps you "Find out what price other people are paying" for everything from child care to botox treatment:

Each topic contains an article researched and written by our editorial staff. Our writers and editors are committed to providing high quality, accurate and objective information. While the site is supported in part by advertising, we clearly demarcate the independent editorial content from links sponsored by advertisers.

But our articles are just the start. We invite members of CostHelper.com to share their own knowledge and experiences with others, to create the broadest, most detailed community resource possible. Our vision is to create a place where you can find cost information on whatever you are looking for, wherever you may be looking, so you can easily plan your budget, find a great price that others are paying, and get started on buying what you're looking for.

Google Maps supports GeoRSS

Google Maps now supports GeoRSS, which is a way of embedding location information in RSS feeds. What this means is that you can more easily add custom information to a Google Map. You can do this by creating an RSS feed with GeoRSS tags embedded in them, then entering the Web address for the RSS feed in the Google Maps search box, such as this quickie demonstration I did to commemorate the departure of Univerity of Kentucky basketball coach Tubby Smith for the University of Minnesota. The Google Developer Blog explains why they're doing this, along with explaining added support for its own format, called KML. Making custom Google Maps still requires some knowledge of programming, but I don't imagine it will be long before anyone can do it.

Infodoodads

I must be self-absorbed, because when I first saw this blog's name I read it as info-dads, when it should be info-doodads. "infodoodads is a blog that reviews and discusses existing and new tools, services, and technology for finding information on the internet. What kind of information? Any kind. The women behind infodoodads love to learn and find information, and every day new tools are being created and unveiled that help people find, sort, and interact with information." I learned about it from The Intelligent Agent blog, which likes it a lot.

Finding and managing podcasts

Library Clips lists the many sites that will help.

Best free online documentaries

Best Online Documentaries is "A comprehensive list of documentaries, to be viewed online for free." The site, which is made using Google Pages, displays strangely and doesn't work in Internet Explorer 7 but works fine in Firefox. There are currently 445 documentaries listed.

Income distribution movies

Information Aesthetics features two YouTube videos that animate U.S. income distribution. Is this an as-yet unexploited method for newspapers to illustrate complex issues? (Granted, any video of anyone doing anything embarrassing, goofy or in the buff would dwarf the viewership of something like that, but we're just throwing ideas out here.)

Become a Google Finance Power User

... as explained by Ask the Advisor. It's a short primer on getting more out of Google Finance, including pointers on using Google Finance's 40 years of stock market data, comparing stocks, customizing charts and finding blogs and forums that discuss particular companies.

Open record adultery?

Mark Hebert of Louisville's WHAS11 reports on a Kentucky man locked in an open records battle with state lawyers over his wife's email:

Steve Malmer suspected his wife was fooling around with a co-worker at the Kentucky State Justice Cabinet.

His wife basically dared Malmer to go get her work e-mails to the suspected lover. So Malmer tried. Now the Justice Cabinet is suing Steve Malmer, trying to keep him from getting his wife's state government e-mails under the Kentucky Open Records Act, saying it could impact every state workers personal e-mail.

A universal, lifetime phone number

David Pogue of The New York Times writes about unifying your work, home and cell phones with GrandCentral:

Its motto, "One number for life," pretty much says it all. At GrandCentral.com, you choose a new, single, unified phone number ... You hand it out to everyone you know, instructing them to delete all your old numbers from their Rolodexes.

From now on, whenever somebody dials your new uninumber, all of your phones ring simultaneously, like something out of "The Lawnmower Man."

To me it sounds more like one of the Circles of Hell, but to each his own. Here's Tim O'Reilly's take at O'Reilly Radar.

TrafficSTATS

At TrafficSTATS (STAtistics on Travel Safety) you explore the risk of suffering a brutal, untimely death in a vehicle depending on such factors as your age, your gender, the time of day and the day of the week, the region where you live and your chosen mode of transportation. The traffic data is from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and the National Household Travel Survey. There's a tutorial and a sample report (PDF). It's a joint project of Carnegie Mellon University and the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

Geonames.org geographical database

The geonames.org geographical database "contains over eight million geographical names and consists of 6.3 million unique features whereof 2.2 million populated places and 1.8 million alternate names. ... The data is accessible free of charge through a number of webservices and a daily database export." There are Python, Perl and Ruby code available to interact with it. A postal codes pages helps you locate codes in many countries, including the U.S., and a reverse address geocoder that allows you to enter a latitude and longitude pair to find the nearest address. The site says it was founded by Marc Wick, "a self-employed software engineer living in Switzerland."

CAR in the UK

Journalism.co.uk ("The essential site for journalists") explores the state of computer-assisted reporting in Great Britain:

One reason for the slow uptake of CAR practices in the UK press is that it has only recently been allowed access to the data sets, through the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA), which came into force in 2000. The New York Times may have a dedicated staff of nearly 20 working on CAR but then the US has had federal freedom of information since 1967.

"The ignorance of CAR is a function of the lack of freedom to information," said Gavin MacFadyean, who runs training courses open to British journalists on aspects of CAR for the Centre of Investigative Journalism. "There is not a tradition here of open-access, transparency and easily available information.

"A common complaint against CAR is: 'it is very American, it wouldn't work here because there is no information'. But it's not true. There is lots of information but you just have to dig it out.

Free books from The Online Books Page

The Online Books Page from the University of Pennsylvania library lists "over 25,000 free books on the Web "

Embeddable instant online calculator

Instacalc is "a fast, easy and shareable online calculator." You can write equations in a readable language, get instant results, share your calculators with others and embed your equations on a Web site. "You can share a link to any calculation - no logins, no attachments, no fuss," the site says. "Readers can see your thoughts, change the numbers, and comment back with a new link!" Here, for example, is one that calculates interest, payments and the like for home loans. You can also take a tour.

UC Berkeley on Google Video

The University of California at Berkeley shares videos of campus seminars, courses and events on Google Video. Of special interest to journalists are the videos from the journalism school, including appearances by Judith Miller, Dan Rather and Seymour Hersh (though, sadly, they misspelled his last name on the opening slide)

Google Earth and the Census

GCensus is a project "to make geographic data freely and easily accessible to the public, without the need for expensive GIS software packages." It uses Google Earth and open source tools. The founder explains his motivation on ExtremeTech:

Possible applications range from the mundane-- ... one could look up the distribution of families and children in a city to find attractive neighborhoods in which to live--to the deeply significant, such as using easily accessible GIS to examine voting patterns and election districts to catch gerrymandering and, potentially, election fraud. The real goal of the project is to democratize information by making data (such as political and environmental data) that's currently publicly accessible in name only, truly accessible to the people.

Juice Analytics, a data consultancy, also offers free Google Earth files that use Census data to map population density, median age and male/female ratio by county and block group. And if those interest you, you’ll also want to check out Census KML Data Visualization, a "blog to track experiments in geographic data visualization using Census data, Ruby, KML, and Google Earth."

Data360

Data360 "is a site where you can find, present and share data. Data360 has been created to provide clear context on important cultural, environmental, social and economic issues." Amy Webb of MyDigiMedia, a blog about "technology, innovation and insight for traditional journalists," writes about it. "I love, love, love this geek-meets-granola approach to data," she gushes. Geek Granola ... Hmmm, I can see some marketing potential there. They'll need good marketing in a space suddenly crowded with the likes of Swivel and Many-Eyes.

Mindomo: Web-based mind mapping software

A mind map is one of those things you draw with a felt tip pen on a big pad of paper in a meeting where you're soliciting ideas, not all of them sensible, and trying to link them together. Mindomo is Web-based mind mapping software you can use to organize your thoughts and the thoughts of others. The site boasts: "Think clearly. Get organized. Boost your productivity. Enhance your creativity." I dunno if that's true because I haven't given Mindomo a good workout, but I have found the free Freemind, another mind mapping tool, useful on occasion. There are many similar mindmapping programs for sale, including ConceptDraw MINDMAP Personal, which normally costs $119 but which is being given away free today only. The advantage of Mindomo, presumably, is that you can easily share your mind maps and access them from anywhere. Whether the world is interested in your addled brain, however, is another matter.

Who owns government office e-mails?

The Decatur Daily addresses the question. The article includes a summary of where public record law on email stands in each state. The FOIA Blog briefly discusses the story, noting that "E-Mails sent on state owned computers has become a huge issue in public records law."

“5 ways to Mix, Rip, and Mash Your Data”

... explained at TechCrunch. Covers Yahoo Pipes, Teqlo, Proto, Dapper and OpenKapow.

Pictures of Numbers

Pictures of Numbers is a blog that offers "Techniques for improving your data graphics." It is by Mike Dickison, a Zoology graduate student who runs information design workshops at Duke University.

Transparency = less corruption

The Social Science Statistics blog writes about a Brazilian study that concludes "the dissemination of information on corruption, which is facilitated by media, does indeed have a detrimental impact on the incumbent’s electoral performance."

Indexed

The author of Indexed draws simple diagrams on index cards to illustrate life's fundamental truths.

Hiring a record retriever

What do you do when you need a public record stored in another city and it's not online? The usual way is to either go in person and pick it up yourself or ask a reporter in that city to do you a favor and get it for you. Another option is a professional record retriever. BRB Publications, which publishes guides to public record retrievers, among other topics, offers a checklist of what to consider when you hire one.