Interactive journalism: An amazing homicide mashup

I had the pleasure of interviewing Sean Connelly and Katy Newton for YDN Theater recently with YDN videographer Ricky Montalvo. They created the amazing (and award-winning) crime data mashup Not Just A Number in partnership with The Oakland Tribune.

Not Just A NumberAfter getting tired of watching the homicide count for 2006 climb higher and higher, they decided to humanize the issue and talk to the families of the victims directly. They wanted to expose the story beneath the number and give a platform upon which the community could make the issue real.

Statistics can tell effective stories, but death and loss reach emotional depths beyond the power of any numerical exploration.

Sean and Katy posted recordings of the families talking about the sons, daughters, sisters and brothers that they lost. They integrated family photos, message boards, articles and more along with the interactive homicide map on the site to round out the experience making it much more human than the traditional crime data mashup.

Here is the video (7 min.):

I also asked them if they had trouble getting data to make the site, and they said the Oakland Tribune staff were very supportive. There weren’t any usable open data sets coming out of the city, so they had to collect and enter everything themselves.

This, of course, is a very manual process. Given the challenge of getting the data Sean and Katy didn’t see how the idea could possibly scale outside of the city of Oakland.

SOmebody needs to take that on as a challenge.

I’m hopeful that efforts like Not Just A Number and the Open Government Data organization will be able to surface why it’s important for our government to open up access to the many data repositories they hold. And if the government won’t do it, then it should be the job of journalists and media companies to surface government data so that people can use it in meaningful ways.

This is a great example of how the Internet can empower people who otherwise have no voice or audience despite having profound stories to tell.

A handy music playlist tool

I’ve been looking for a way to share playlists on my blog and elsewhere online for a long time. It’s been surprisingly hard to find a really convenient way to do it.

DRM and industry lockdown have been a big part of that, but there have also been too few technical ways to point to music files that are already publicly available. There are tons of legal MP3’s on the Internet that reside at readable URLs today.

Lucas Gonze and his team at Yahoo! solved this problem. They launched a source-agnostic embeddable media player. You can read more about it on YDN.

It’s fantastically simple. All you do is paste this reference to Yahoo!’s media player javascript code anywhere on your web page (I added it at the bottom of my blog templates):

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/js”></script>

Then you just add an HTML link somewhere on your web page to any MP3 file you want to see in your playlist.

That’s it. You’re already done. The link you just made will now include a small play button in front of it, and a mini media player will appear in the browser.

Here’s a short playlist I quickly put together to show how it works. The 4th track here is particularly relevant to my life:

Cut Chemist – The Garden
Young Einstein (Ugly Duckling) – Handcuts Soul Mix
They Might Be Giants- Birdhouse in Your Soul
LCD Soundsystem – Losing My Edge

The code for that playlist looks like this:

<a href=”http://download.wbr.com/cutchemist/TheGarden.mp3″> Cut Chemist – The Garden </a>
<a href=”http://www.uglyduckling.us/music/HandCutsSoulMix.mp3″> Young Einstein (Ugly Duckling) – Handcuts Soul Mix </a>
<a href=”http://midwesternhousewives.com/mix/The%20Might%20Be%20Giants-%20Birdhouse%20in%20Your%20Soul.mp3″> They Might Be Giants- Birdhouse in Your Soul </a>
<a href=”http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/s/m/smk291/muchies/LCD%20Soundsystem%20-%20Losing%20My%20Edge.mp3″> LCD Soundsystem – Losing My Edge </a>

They’ve included some other nice things in the code that give you some flexibility. You can create a shareable playlist file, and you can add cover art, for example.

What I like most, probably, is the architecture of the solution. Anyone who already links to MP3 files can just add the music player javascript code to their page templates, and it will just work immediately. You don’t have to force fit a heavily branded HTML badge into your web page. And since the links are all standard HTML href’s, the content of the playlist is search engine friendly.

It’s the first time I’ve seen a media player so closely aligned with the way the Internet works.

Lucas posts about the need to unlock how media files are referenced. He wants to take the complexity out of distribution and reduce the concept of music sharing and discoverability to the Internet’s roots with URLs as identifiers:

“Almost all online music businesses right now are in the distribution business, even if they see other functions like discovery or social connection as their main value, because they have no way to connect their discovery or social connection features with a reliable provisioning service from a third party. But provisioning is a commodity service which doesn’t give anybody an edge. They don’t want to import playlists from third parties because *that’s* where they are adding value.

Exporting playlists for others to provision, though, is a different story, and it makes much more sense from a business perspective. Let somebody else deal with provisioning. This is what it would mean for somebody like Launchcast or Pandora to publish XSPF with portable song identifiers that could be resolved by companies that specialize in provisioning.”

It seems Lucas is thinking about how to get music flowing around the Internet with the same efficiency that text has enjoyed. Very smart.

Building markets out of data

I’m intrigued by the various ways people view ‘value’. There seem to be 2 camps: 1) people who view the world in terms of competition for finite resources and 2) people who see ways to create new forms of value and to grow the entire pie.

Umair Haque talks about choices companies make that push them into one of those 2 camps. He often argues that the market needs more builders than winners. He clarifies his position in his post The Economics of Evil:

“When you’re evil, your ability to co-create value implodes: because you make moves which are focused on shifting costs and extracting value, rather than creating it. …when you’re evil, the only game you want to – or can play – is domination.”

I really like the idea that the future of the media business is in the way we build value for all constituencies rather than the way we extract value from various parts of a system. It’s not about how you secure marketshare, control distribution, mitigate risk or reduce costs. It’s about how you enable the creation of value for all.

He goes on to explain how media companies often make the mistake of focusing on data ownership:

“Data isn’t the value. In fact, data’s a commodity…What is valuable are the things that create data: markets, networks, and communities.

Google isn’t revolutionizing media because it “owns the data”. Rather, it’s because Google uses markets and networks to massively amplify the flow of data relative to competitors.”

I would add that it’s not just the creation of valuable data that matters but also in the way people interface with existing data. Scott Karp’s excellent post on the guidelines for transforming media companies shares a similar view:

“The most successful media companies will be those that learn to how build networks and harness network effects. This requires a mindset that completely contradicts traditional media business practices. Remember, Google doesn’t own the web. It doesn’t control the web. Google harnesses the power of the web by analyzing how websites link to each other.”

The useful convergence of data

I have only one prediction for 2008. I think we’re finally about to see the useful combination of the 4 W’s – Who, What, Where, and When.

Marc Davis has done some interesting research in this area at Yahoo!, and Bradley Horowitz articulated how he sees the future of this space unfolding in a BBC article in June ’07:

“We do a great job as a culture of “when”. Using GMT I can say this particular moment in time and we have a great consensus about what that means…We also do a very good job of “where” – with GPS we have latitude and longitude and can specify a precise location on the planet…The remaining two Ws – we are not doing a great job of.”

I’d argue that the social networks are now really honing in on “who”, and despite having few open standards for “what” data (other than UPC) there is no shortage of “what” data amongst all the “what” providers. Every product vendor has their own version of a product identifier or serial number (such as Amazon’s ASIN, for example).

We’ve seen a lot of online services solving problems in these areas either by isolating specific pieces of data or combining the data in specific ways. But nobody has yet integrated all 4 in a meaningful way.


Jeff Jarvis’ insightful post on social airlines starts to show how these concepts might form in all kinds of markets. When you’re traveling it makes a lot of sense to tap into “who” data to create compelling experiences that will benefit everyone:

  • At the simplest level, we could connect while in the air to set up shared cab rides once we land, saving passengers a fortune.
  • We can ask our fellow passengers who live in or frequently visit a destination for their recommendations for restaurants, things to do, ways to get around.
  • We can play games.
  • What if you chose to fly on one airline vs. another because you knew and liked the people better? What if the airline’s brand became its passengers?
  • Imagine if on this onboard social network, you could find people you want to meet – people in the same business going to the same conference, people of similar interests, future husbands and wives – and you can rendezvous in the lounge.
  • The airline can set up an auction marketplace for at least some of the seats: What’s it worth for you to fly to Berlin next Wednesday?

Carrying the theme to retail markets, you can imagine that you will walk into H&M and discover that one of your first-degree contacts recently bought the same shirt you were about to purchase. You buy a different one instead. Or people who usually buy the same hair conditioner as you at the Walgreen’s you’re in now are switching to a different hair conditioner this month. Though this wouldn’t help someone like me who has no hair to condition.

Similarly, you can imagine that marketing messages could actually become useful in addition to being relevant. If CostCo would tell me which of the products I often buy are on sale as I’m shopping, or which of the products I’m likely to need given what they know about how much I buy of what and when, then my loyalty there is going to shoot through the roof. They may even be able to identify that I’m likely buying milk elsewhere and give me a one-time coupon for CostCo milk.

Bradley sees it playing out on the phone, too:

“On my phone I see prices for a can of soup in my neighbourhood. It resolves not only that particular can of soup but knows who I am, where I am and where I live and helps me make an intelligent decision about whether or not it is a fair price.

It has to be transparent and it has to be easy because I am not going to invest a lot of effort or time to save 13 cents.”

It may be unrealistic to expect that this trend will explode in 2008, but I expect it to at least appear in a number of places and inspire future implementations as a result. What I’m sure we will see in 2008 is dramatic growth in the behind-the-scenes work that will make this happen, such as the development and customization of CRM-like systems.

Lots of companies have danced around these ideas for years, but I think the ideas and the technologies are finally ready to create something real, something very powerful.

Photo: SophieMuc

The Internet’s secret sauce: surfacing coincidence

What is it that makes my favorite online services so compelling? I’m talking about the whole family of services that includes Dopplr, Wesabe, Twitter, Flickr, and del.icio.us among others.

I find it interesting that people don’t generally refer to any of these as “web sites”. They are “services”.

I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Dopplr’s Matt Biddulph and Matt Jones last week while in London where they described the architecture of what they’ve built in terms of connected data keys. The job of Dopplr, Mr. Jones said, was to “surface coincidence”.

I think that term slipped out accidentally, but I love it. What does it mean to “surface coincidence”?

It starts by enabling people to manufacture the circumstances by which coincidence becomes at least meaningful if not actually useful. Or, as Jon Udell put it years ago now when comparing Internet data signals to cellular biology:

“It looks like serendipity, and in a way it is, but it’s manufactured serendipity.”

All these services allow me to manage fragments of my life without requiring burdensome tasks. They all let me take my data wherever I want. They all enhance my data by connecting it to more data. They all make my data relevant in the context of a larger community.

When my life fragments are managed by an intelligent service, then that service can make observations about my data on my behalf.

Dopplr can show me when a distant friend will be near and vice versa. Twitter can show me what my friends are doing right now. Wesabe can show me what others have learned about saving money at the places where I spend my money. Among many other things Flickr can show me how to look differently at the things I see when I take photos. And del.icio.us can show me things that my friends are reading every day.

There are many many behaviors both implicit and explicit that could be managed using this formula or what is starting to look like a successful formula, anyhow. Someone could capture, manage and enhance the things that I find funny, the things I hate, the things at home I’m trying to get rid of, the things I accomplished at work today, the political issues I support, etc.

But just collecting, managing and enhancing my life fragments isn’t enough. And I think what Matt Jones said is a really important part of how you make data come to life.

You can make information accessible and even fun. You can make the vast pool feel manageable and usable. You can make people feel connected.

And when you can create meaning in people’s lives, you create deep loyalty. That loyalty can be the foundation of larger businesses powered by advertising or subscriptions or affiliate networks or whatever.

The result of surfacing coincidence is a meaningful action. And those actions are where business value is created.

Wikipedia defines coincidence as follows:

“Coincidence is the noteworthy alignment of two or more events or circumstances without obvious causal connection.”

This is, of course, similar and related to the definition of serendipity:

“Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else entirely.”

You might say that this is a criteria against which any new online service should be measured. Though it’s probably so core to getting things right that every other consideration in building a new online service needs to support it.

It’s probably THE criteria.

How to launch an online platform

I attended the Bebo developer platform announcement this morning in San Francisco. The announcement seemed to go down very well based on immediate response, though only time will tell if the expected impact is achieved.

Bebo schwag
It’s clear that a formula for launching this kind of stuff exists, and I think Bebo did a great job of giving it their own flavor. The overall format Bebo used was standard:

  • Invite people to a nice place and give them some free stuff
  • Give a presentation including a video showing customer testimonials
  • Let the founder or product owner or thought leader present the product
  • Parade the partners on stage
  • Provide demos for people to peruse after the presentation
  • Keep it short

But the nuances in the formula are what make an online platform launch successful.

  1. Create an invite-only experience: This is true with restaurants, art galleries, clubs and just about any socially-driven service. Make a select few feel important by treating them differently, and they will then be your advocate. Bebo invited press and partners to a small-ish rooom to give their presentation at the Metreon. Those people then felt responsible for spreading the news.
  2. Make it newsworthy: I wouldn’t say that the Bebo platform was a secret, by any means, but the features that make it worth talking about were kept secret until the event. In particular, the crowd seemed very pleased to hear that Bebo decided to emulate Facebook’s success by making their platform fully compatible with Facebook’s.
  3. Follow standards: Developers are not generally interested in proprietary environments unless there is a substantial gain to be made by leveraging that environment. Platforms on the Internet should default to known and proven standards, and when they do deviate, there should be compelling reason to do so. Bebo indicated that there might be features in the future that are Bebo-specific such as micropayments, and I suspect the developer community would be happy to customize their apps for Bebo when those features are ready.
  4. Prime the pump with partners: An ecosystem is not an ecosystem if it doesn’t have partners. So, don’t launch a service for partners with no partners already committed. But more than that, partners are proofpoints that the wider market wants to validate that what you offer is in fact real. Give them the stage. Make them successful, so others want to follow suit. I wasn’t all that impressed with the NBC Universal app showcased at the Bebo event, but the Gaia Online and Flixster apps were solid. And the 20 or so partners demoing in the back of the room after the presentations were great evangelists for the platform. They were proud to be there and happy to sing Bebo’s praises.
  5. Be real: I’m always a sucker for a self-deprecating joker, but Bebo founder Michael Birch backed up the laughs with substance. He admitted that they intend to follow Facebook and do whatever they do which is a totally viable strategy in this space, at this point in time. Of course, he gave himself a great defense should they get pounded by the press, but his approach was very refreshing in a market that’s increasingly crowded full with ambition and arrogance.

Again, the response by developers and then the subsequent uptake by users will be the real indicators of success. But Bebo gave themselves as good a start as any by getting the launch off on the right foot.

Making government more useful through data

A very interesting working group formed recently to drive better transparency in government through data. The Open Government Data organization has a simple aim:

“The group is offering a set of fundamental principles for open government data. By embracing the eight principles, governments of the world can become more effective, transparent, and relevant to our lives.”

They proposed that data will be considered open if it complies with the following qualifications:

1. Complete
2. Primary
3. Timely
4. Accessible
5. Machine processable
6. Non-discriminatory
7. Non-proprietary
8. License-free

This is a promising approach to driving high impact changes in the way government serves its people. Giving everyone greater access to relevant information that they already own is a noble pursuit.

I’ve explored this a little myself in some investigations of access to crime data [1, 2].

It’s no surprise that Adrian Holovaty of the Chicago Crime mashup fame (and now Every Block) is one of the founding members. Of course, there’s no better advocate for the free flow of information than Lawrence Lessig. And Tim O’Reilly will be a strong foundational force here. I’d love to see Jon Udell join, too, as his work has inspired a lot of people (myself included) to think differently about exposing and sharing data like this.

Good luck, guys!

Oakland Trib’s Not-Just-A-Number improves on crime data visualization

OJR’s Jim Wayne dives into Oakland Tribune’s “Not Just A Number” web site. The service won the Service Journalism Award from ONA for an amazingly powerful view of crime data.

The basic premise was to create a data visualization for Oakland homicide crime data that made the victims and, more importantly, the people in their lives real participants in the story rather than pure statistics (or just plain ignored entirely).

It’s a very powerful site and a model for all local newspapers to follow. It’s disappointing but no surprise the media creates these kinds of community services before local governments do. At least we’re getting more access to crime data.

Wayne also points to a crime data visualization from the Los Angeles Times called The Homicide Map that I wasn’t aware of.

They have a nice map mashup that takes a more statistical approach, yet they also include things like images of the victims.

Unfortunately, as Oakland Tribune producers Katy Newton and Sean Connelley point out, a mug shot is not a fair image to use for a violent crime victim in a statistical map. But I’m glad to see them exposing data that needs to be shared.

732 homicides in Los Angeles so far in 2007! Unbelievable.

The problem with being popular (part 2)

One of the more interesting sciences, in my mind, is how information relevance is both determined, surfaced and then evolved.

In Fred Wilson’s recent Cautionary Techmeme Tale he argues that making news popular takes away its social context and therefore becomes meaningless. He found Techmeme more useful when its sources more closely resembled his network of friends:

“For years, I’ve been using curators to filter my web experience…Techmeme has been the killer social media curator for my world of tech blogs. Lore has it that it was created using Scoble’s OPML file. It doesn’t matter to me if that’s true or not, I love that story. Because my OPML file was unusable until I found Techmeme and after that I stopped reading feeds and started reading curated feeds.”

This feeds into a larger argument about why pop culture and the art of being or becoming popular can be a bad thing. Not long ago I was inspired by the movie “Good Night and Good Luck” to dive into this idea myself:

“The real problem with popularity-driven models is that they reduce both the breadth and depth of the sources, topics and viewpoints being expressed across a community. Popularity-driven models water down the value in those hard-to-find nuggets. They normalize coverage and create new power structures that interesting things have to fight through.”

This is exactly why personalization, recommendations and social media technologies really matter. They can solve this problem of creating conformist media consumption practices by creating relevance through networks of people rather than through networks of commercial institutions.

I haven’t used My Yahoo! as much as I’d like, but there is a simple function in it that I love which could ultimately create amazing benefits for people who want a human filter for the Internet. It’s called “Top Picks”.

“The Top Picks module automatically highlights stories from your page, based on the articles you have recently read on My Yahoo! The more stories you click on, the more you will see this module reflect your interests.”

Actually, the technology beneath it is not so ‘simple’ but the application of it here makes so much sense that it feels like it’s simple when you watch it work. It works by using implicit behaviors. I don’t have to tell it what I like. It learns.

If it could also show me what my social network is tapped into right now, then the experience would feel nearly complete.

Media researchers will note here that people need pop culture to feel connected to a greater whole. I believe that’s true, too. Television is an amazingly powerful community builder.

But I would gladly trade a powerful singular social voice tied together by networks of distribution ownership for a less unified but still loosely connected network of pop culture tied together by my personal activities and my social connections.