My colleague Judith made a valiant effort getting our 12 days of Christmas for journalists to fall into rhythm – glad we didn’t attempt the below, created by writer Bill Dyszel (found at mediabistro.com):

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To complement its liveblogged coverage of election day, which is still going at time of writing, Guardian.co.uk has changed its homepage design to the below:

This is a template that could be used for other major news events. As BBC News online editor Steve Herrmann told Journalism.co.uk earlier this week the election has been a great opportunity for news sites to experiment with coverage and layout, developing features for future use.

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While reviewing the best online coverage of election day, CNN’s press office dropped us a line about the ‘magic board’ – a map of the states which will be used by presenter John King to show the results and forecasts as they come in.

For anyone who loves/loathes a good swing-o-meter, here’s Saturday Night Live’s take on it:

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For those that have been under a rock/on Mars for the last year, the next President of the United States will be decided tonight, giving news organisations another opportunity to flaunt their interactive, live reporting and user-generated wares as the votes unfold.

We’ve already covered Sky News’ election coverage and BBC News’ live online plans, but here’s our round-up of some of the best projects out there – open up twenty browser tabs, sit back and enjoy:

• NYTimes.com: the paper has set up a political ‘word train’ visualising how readers are feeling. It’ll update with new answers every 30 minutes (thanks to @matthewbuckland for the link). Elsewhere the site’s homepage is dominated by election coverage, with plenty of images and video – making use of the new video player – and a pop-up results widget.
• Twitter Vote Report: the microblogging tool has been harnessed by a network of volunteers to map voters’ experiences at the polls. Tweets tagged with waiting times (e.g. #wait 120 for a 120 minute delay) are plotted creating a rapidly updating map of problems. Could be a great service for local newspapers in the states to provide:

• Current: using Twitter, as it did during the presidential debates, the site and channel will integrate Tweets, Digg headlines and video from 12seconds as part of an election broadcast.
• WashingtonPost.com: the paper has gone for an aggregated approach, pulling together all strands of its election day coverage on a map. The TimeSpace: Election graphic shows photos, video, articles, tweets, posts and audio and lets you scroll through the day with a timeline:

• Yahoo: created a one-stop shop, US election microsite drawing together all of its features, including forums, Yahoo Answers, AP and Politico stories and aggregated content from external news sites, a Flickr stream of photos and options to set up news alerts on the candidates.
• Hubdub: the just-for-fun news prediction site is carrying an election forecast map, which it claims is based on ‘51 underlying prediction markets that respond in real-time to breaking news’. Users can view forecasts state-by-state to help them decided where to place their Hubdub dollars when predicting the outcome of questions such as ‘Who will win the 2008 US Presidential Election?’ and ‘What will be the margin of victory in the state of Ohio?’

That’s not enough, I hear you cry. You want more? Well, over at paidContent:UK, Robert Andrews has wrapped up the online coverage from the UK’s newspapers, while Online Journalism Blog chieftain Paul Bradshaw has an extensive list of online activities.

This is only the tip of the iceberg – any other great coverage, tools or websites that need a mention, let us know below.

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Following the release of its first campaign finance API earlier this month, the New York Times is handing over even more of its data to users with the launch of the Visualization Lab.

Using IBM’s ‘Many Eyes’ technology, the lab allows readers to experiment with different ways of visualising data sets from the Times, whether these are stats and figures included in articles or simply the words used in a speech reported in a news item.

Visualisation options, of which there are currently 17, range from graphs and maps, to word trees, for example:

• Wordle – here used by the New York Times for Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democrat National Convention

• A world map – visualising data on infant mortality rates in selected countries, created by the Times

• A bubble chart – such as the one below, created by us, which ranks US NFL teams by rushing yards (even though I’m not entirely sure what this is…)

According to an introductory post on the Time’s Open blog, the Visualization Lab is the first in a series of tools scheduled for release in the next few weeks both internally and for readers.

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NYTimes.com has developed a new video player to allow clips to be embedded in more sections of the site.

The player, which uses technology from Brightcove, will make video available on the homepage, individual article pages and on the site’s blogs, a release from the title said. The player also lets users send footage to social networks and bookmarking sites, including Digg, Facebook and LinkedIn.

As part of a video overhaul, the Times’ video library has been redesigned and a regularly updated list of ‘most viewed’ clips now features on the site.

“Demand for high-quality video is on the rise across the web from both our users and our advertisers,” said Nicholas Ascheim, vice president of product management for NYTimes.com, in the release.

“To meet this need, we have upgraded our technology, increased our production values and given video even more prominence across the site.”

According to the release, the Times produces 100 videos a month, while also featuring content from Reuters, CNBC, MSNBC and Bloggingheads.tv.

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Student bloggers should take note of this one:  College Scholarships.org are giving away a $10,000 scholarship prize to a student blogger.

But before potential applicants get too excited, here’s the requirements you need to meet:

• ‘Your blog must contain unique and interesting information about you and/or things you are passionate about.’
• You must be U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
• You must be currently attending full-time in post-secondary education in the United States.
• If you win, you must be willing to allow the organisation to list your name and blog on their page.

Important dates:

• Accepting submissions: October 15 2008
• Submission deadline: October 30 2008

Full details here.

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