It’s been a while and a huge amount has happened since our last Friday mail. Given the amount of activity that’s been going on, the fact that next week sees the release of the much anticipated Digital Britain report and given the fact that I’m working with GSK on looking into Wikis, I’ve been looking for sites and tools that allow us to view large reams of information in different ways. The first three sites do that in abundance.
The last site is a designer’s portfolio site which caught my eye. We’ve also been looking at how individuals are looking to manage their personal brand in this new environment and this example stood out for me as simple, intuitive and endearing. Nothing new, just a simple idea nicely executed.
Enjoy
A
Debategraph (http://debategraph.org/)
Hosted by Independent newspaper, debategraph is a wiki that maps all the arguments and issues on particular topics. Interested in exploring the causes, consequences and responses to the global financial crisis? Want to know if computers can think? Or would you like to delve into the classic existential debate posed by the Bard in Hamlet? Then this site is for you. It takes a while to get used to, but once you do, it’s a really useful and engaging tool.
Al Jazeerah ‘War on Gaza’ mashup (http://labs.aljazeera.net/warongaza/)
I first came across this site on the BBC Digital Plant podcast. Its an interesting example of how the Broadcast community is interlinking professional reporting with individual commentary to produce a more comprehensive insight into a particular topic. In this case, news agency Al Jazeerah has entered the world of neogeography to create an interactive map that tracks the reporting on the conflict, allowing users to break the information down to various layers (number of deaths, strikes etc.). It’s something that has been done before, but the most interesting feature is that information can be derived from people themselves, using a number of tools including Twitter. Given the increasing popularity of Twitter, I’m just wondering how long its going to be before the recruitment community uses something like this to overlay the number of available jobs in particular regions for a company, and what employees feel about the particular company…
Yahoo! NewsGlobe (http://next.yahoo.net/download/newsglobe)
For global news junkies amongst you, last year Yahoo! released a tool that allows you to visualise real-time news releases around the world. Each story has a snapshot and a pinpoint on its particular location in a 3d rendition of the globe. You can download this to your desktop, or place it as a widget and use it for your own purposes. Its harmless fun, but my level of need for news isn’t THAT pressing. Perhaps it’s more your bag? An alternative (customisable) version of this can be seen at MappedUp (http://www.mappedup.com/)
Bibina (http://www.bibina.com/)
“Mi nombre es Isabel, soy disenadora actualmente me dedico al diseno web y vivo en Barcleona. Si quieres ponerte en contaco conmigo mi email es bibina@bibina.com” roughly translates as “my name is Isabel and I’m currently a web designer working in Barcelona. If you would like to get in contact, my email is bibina@bibina.com” Simple stuff, nicely done. What more can I say?