It was just a little over a week ago that The New York Times announced their Developer Network i.e. Campaign Finance API. Yesterday, they announced something more – the Visualization Lab. In collaboration with the Many Eyes group, the Times has rolled out a Many Eyes for data used by Times writers. You can visualize, explore, and comment on data posted at the Visualization Lab in the same way that you can at Many Eyes.
Today, we’re taking the next step in reader involvement with the launch of The New York Times Visualization Lab, which allows readers to create compelling interactive charts, graphs, maps and other types of graphical presentations from data made available by Times editors. NYTimes.com readers can comment on the visualizations, share them with others in the form of widgets and images, and create topic hubs where people can collect visualizations and discuss specific subjects.
A Few More Steps
I said the API was a good step forward. The Visualization Lab is more than a step. No doubt The Times heard what I said about their API and decided to roll with it since I am the head authority on everything. Yes, I’m totally kidding, in case that didn’t come across as a joke. Come on now.
I’m looking forward to seeing how well Times readers take to this new way of interacting.
[Thanks, William]
i like what they’re doing with releases like this, making data more accesible and providing fun visuals for readers when lacking someone like you to do them
I think it’s good to see collaborations like this shared with the public.
I still don’t care for that bubbly kind of chart. Wouldn’t a bar chart show the relative sizes much more effectively? The bars could be sorted y value, so one wouldn’t have to scan side to side to discover that Catholic, Muslim, and Greek Orthodox all share values of 10, whatever the units are (obviously not percent of the population, perhaps million people?).
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I’d like to congratulate the many-eyes folks for that. This is exactly the way to go. What you do is great but you must find ways to take it in the open, take it where people read and care.