#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Google Fusion Tables

This ‘how to’ post on Poynter offers a step-by-step guide on how to visualise data, in this case using Google Fusion Tables, to create heat maps. Tipster: Rachel McAthy.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

Similar posts:

• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – using Geocommons to map data
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – try this tutorial on using Google Fusion Tables
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – setting up a Tumblr blog
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – setting up news feed on Facebook
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – live streaming on Facebook

Beet.TV: Mapping platform Ushahidi shifting focus to revenue

Open source mapping platform Ushahidi is now offering a customising service to users of its platform, in an attempt to earn its own income from the technology.

The platform, which maps reports on an event or occurance geographically, will still be free to download and run.

Speaking in a video interview with Beet.TV, executive director of Ushahidi Ory Okolloh discussed the next stage of development for the site.

Our focus up to this point has been just on getting the code out there and refining the tool. We’re now starting to work on sustainability and ways we don’t have to rely so much on foundations, but generating our own income.

The tool will always be free but now we do customisations for a fee.

Ushahidi has also recently launched a tool to help with translations of reports, a video plugin for those unable to report in other ways and there is a “revamped” iPhone app coming out soon, she added.

The idea is to just keep going and to keep always being on the edge of innovation.

Similar posts:

• Nieman Journalism Lab: How Ushahidi can be use by media organisations
• Crisis-mapping platform Ushahidi launches new simple service
• What the BBC learned from using Crowdmap tool to cover tube strikes
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – mapping crowdsourced contributions
• Nieman Journalism Lab: Interview with KNC winner Ushahidi

Guardian experiments with Crowdmap for Pope’s visit

Following BBC London’s use of open source mapping technology Crowdmap to cover the London Underground strikes earlier this month, the Guardian is using the tool to record reports of the Pope’s visit to the UK.

The map blends text, image and video reports from the Guardian’s own team with those submitted by readers and papal bystanders. There’s a certain tongue-in-cheek element to it as well, with categories for popemobile sightings and miracles alongside reports on protests and official news.

Explains the Guardian’s Paul Lewis in a blog post:

You can send anything, but we’re particularly interested in incidents, events and insights from people who find themselves at the right place at the right time, spotting something that the papal entourage of global media miss. It is important that you tell us where you are when you send your dispatch.

The majority of the updates plotted so far are from the Guardian, but it will be interesting to see how tools like this take off and how they might be further integrated into live reporting.

Similar posts:

• Guardian launches Comment Network on Comment is free
• #soe09: Guardian’s Paul Lewis wins ‘Rat up a drainpipe’ Award
• MediaGuardian: British Press Awards results
• Inside the Guardian’s new newsroom
• Facebook: Guardian app has 3.9m monthly active users

#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – using OpenHeatMap for visualisations

Mapping: Great video from OpenHeatMap’s Pete Warden on how to use the tool to create visualisations of geographic data – mainly US and maps of the world available – but worth playing with. Tipster: Laura Oliver.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

Similar posts:

• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – tools for site data searches
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – mapping local news buzz
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Data Miner’s tools for data journalism
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – tools for online maps
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – tools for playing with data

Crisis-mapping platform Ushahidi launches new simple service

Open source crisis-mapping platform Ushahidi has launched a new service for the less technically minded user.

Crowdmap enables anyone to rapidly deploy the platform on a subdomain without the need for any installation.

Testing the platform yesterday Curt Hopkins from ReadWriteWeb.com came into some difficulties, but the company say these have now been ironed out. Hopkins added that if the problems are sorted, the platform has significant potential for supporting blogging in difficult situations.

Crowdmap, if it works without inducing aneurysms, may have the potential that blogging did in areas of conflict and high censorship: anyone with basic tech access and determination should be able to download, launch and run a Crowdmap deployment.

See his full post here…

Similar posts:

• Gannett Blog: ‘Why I’m shutting down this blog’
• Nieman Journalism Lab: How Gannett Blog works its niche
• Does a blog still cut it for journalism students?
• Mediating Conflict: Blogging and the curse of comments
• BBC News: Blogger celebrates 10 years

News Designs: How to use maps in print

Some great advice here from News Designs on what works best for maps and infographics in newspaper print editions. The post covers:

• Typography;
• Colour;
• Connecting to the headline;
• The use of photography;
• Interpretation.

Full post on News Designs at this link…

Similar posts:

• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – maps in newspapers
• Times joins forces with Applied Works to create iPad interactives
• Marc Vallée: The Met’s new photography guidelines
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – creating infographics
• Headlines and Deadlines: How journalism students can make the most of work experience

Nieman Journalism Lab: How Ushahidi can be use by media organisations

Patrick Meier, Ushahidi’s director of crisis mapping and strategic partnerships, talks to Nieman Journalism about how the crowdsourced mapping technology can be used by media organisations in the video below.

There’s a full transcript of Meier’s comments on the Nieman site too. Ushahidi has previously been used as a crisis management tool with its initial launch used to track and monitor acts of violence and the humanitarian situation during post-election violence in Kenya.

Similar posts:

• NYTimes.com: How Ushahidi is ‘transforming the notion of bearing witness’
• Beet.TV: Mapping platform Ushahidi shifting focus to revenue
• Nieman: A year later, lessons for the media from the Haiti earthquake response
• Journalism in Africa: Kenyan news organisations cleared of fuelling post-election violence
• Nieman Journalism Lab: Interview with KNC winner Ushahidi

Mapping stories and historical images on Google Street View

Historypin, a site that overlays historical images and related stories on Google Street View, describes itself as “like a digital time machine”:

It uses Google Maps and Street View technology and hopes to become the largest user-generated archive of the world’s historical images and stories.

Historypin asks the public to dig out, upload and pin their own old photos, as well as the stories behind them, onto the Historypin map. Uniquely, Historypin lets you layer old images onto modern Street View scenes, giving a series of peaks into the past.

It has been developed by We Are What We Do, the “social movement” and campaign that was behind the book ‘Teach your Granny to Text and Other Ways to Change the World’, in partnership with Google.

If the technology behind it were opened up, this would be a fascinating way to publishing ‘nostalgia’ pictures from local newspapers, news archives or map historic stories.

(via Mapperz)

Similar posts:

• PIXSTA develops ‘image-to-image’ search engine
• #jpod: How journalists are using Google+
• ITN maps news items with Google mash-up
• Google Blog: Citizentube tracking ‘way people using video to change the world’
• #MozFest: Six lessons for journalists from the Mozilla Festival

NYTimes.com: How Ushahidi is ‘transforming the notion of bearing witness’

How Ushahidi, the mapping technology developed to help bloggers and citizen journalists share information about political violence in Kenya, is being used by news organisations and governments:

With every new application, Ushahidi is quietly transforming the notion of bearing witness in tragedy. For a very long time, this was done first by journalists in real time, next by victim/writers like Anne Frank and, finally, by historians. But in this instantaneous age, this kind of testimony confronts a more immediate kind: one of aggregate, average, good-enough truths.

Full story at this link…

Similar posts:

• Nieman Journalism Lab: Interview with KNC winner Ushahidi
• TechCrunch: Amazon opens e-reading to short form with Kindle Singles
• Blog08: Pete Cashmore – Blogging is dead, microblogging is the future
• Experiences of using Publish2 to report the Washington flooding
• NYTimes.com: Life after ‘snarky’ – the future for the gossip site writers

#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – mapping local news buzz

Blogging: Keep an eye on Bing’s Local Lens application – currently only available for certain US cities, it adds blog posts and Twitter updates to maps of local areas. A great tool for local journalists tracking stories or looking for leads. Tipster: Laura Oliver.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

Similar posts:

• Bing’s Local Lens app – potential for local news journalists?
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – think ahead with PlanningAlerts.com
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – wiki for reporting on local government
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – tracking stories on your patch
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – who’s covering your story?