we.gov PDF09 by stevegarfield

Among the topics being discussed are:

• State-of-the-art online politics and advocacy
• Designing .gov for participation
• Twitter as a platform for organizing and fundraising
• The future of political journalism, blogging and network media
• How to use online video for political and issue based advocacy
• The rise of mobile politicking and organizing
• Rethinking media campaigns and organizations from the ground up

During his keynote on how technology is improving government yesterday morning, NYC Mayor Bloomberg announced the “BiggApps competition,” challenging developers in the audience to “play with city data.”

MayorBloomberg PDF09 by magnifynet

Here’s the press release for the competition:

MAYOR BLOOMBERG ANNOUNCES FIVE TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES TO IMPROVE ACCESSIBILITY, TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACROSS CITY GOVERNMENT

City Providing Data to the Public to Allow for the Development of Applications for Computers and Mobile Devices as Part of “NYC Big Apps” Public Contest; 311 and NYC.gov Enhanced through Skype, Twitter and Google

Obama Administration Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra Applauds City Efforts

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today announced a series of technology initiatives designed to increase transparency and improve access to information about City services. The City will provide data to allow for the development of software applications that can be used on websites and mobile devices, and through what will become an annual competition known as NYC Big Apps, the City will encourage innovative and useful applications. The Mayor also announced the launch of 311 Online and other improvements to 311 and NYC.gov through services provided by Skype, Twitter and Google. With call volume to 311 continuing to increase, 311 Online will allow the City to maintain the current level of service with current staffing levels, potentially avoiding more than $4 million in additional costs next fiscal year. The Mayor made the announcement in remarks delivered through Skype to the Personal Democracy Forum at Lincoln Center, an annual conference that explores how technology and the Internet are changing politics, democracy and society. New York City Chief Information Officer and Commissioner of the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications Paul J. Cosgrave also attended the conference.

“We’ve already made great strides increasing the accessibility of City data and transparency of City government, and these initiatives will use private sector technological innovation to bolster those efforts,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “Through NYC Big Apps, 311 Online and services offered by Skype, Twitter and Google, we’re working to provide public information to New Yorkers in as many ways as possible.”

“We applaud New York City’s leadership on delivering a more open and innovative government,” said Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra. “These five announcements align well to President Obama’s Open Government Initiative and reflect best practices worthy of replication to achieve excellence in public sector performance.”

“Today’s package of initiatives represents an historic stride in transparency – even for systems that have made accessibility commonplace,” said Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications Commissioner Cosgrave. “As successful as we have been in opening up City government to those it serves, the key to technology deployment for any organization is to continue innovating. As 311 and NYC.gov grow, the City needs to adapt and engage New Yorkers in utilizing the data it collects to keep fresh these enduring avenues of access.”

NYC Big Apps

Through the NYC Big Apps annual competition, the City will provide an array of data sets to encourage the public to develop applications that could benefit New Yorkers. Approximately 80 data sets from across 32 City agencies and commissions may be made available on NYC.gov, including such categories as citywide events, property records and sales information, recreational facility directories and restaurant inspection information. The City will invite the public to create innovative applications, and winners will be awarded a cash prize and marketing opportunities. Mayor Bloomberg plans to congratulate the winners in person at a dinner. The contest will begin this fall. The program will be administered by New York City Economic Development Corporation, which today issued a Request for Expressions of Interest to solicit information from software developers and professionals in related fields to identify additional data sets to be aggregated.

“Finding opportunities to engage our innovative high-tech workforce is integral to the continued growth of the media sector in New York City,” said New York City Economic Development Corporation President Seth W. Pinsky. “By making City data available to a broader audience and encouraging our entrepreneurs to create new applications using that information, we leverage existing resources to stimulate investment and create jobs.”

311 Online

Mayor Bloomberg launched 311 Online, a one-stop, searchable web portal on NYC.gov for thousands of New York City services. Through the site, New Yorkers can obtain information, report problems, lodge complaints, check the status of previously-filed complaints and request City services – just as they can by calling 311. Users can browse through a directory of City services, search for available services by specific demographic or service type, and access quick links to featured services and top services. Keyword searches and advanced search options allow customers to navigate directly to the information. Users will be able to attach pictures, videos and audio files to their complaints and service requests.

311 Skype and Twitter Accounts

The Mayor announced 311 Skype and Twitter accounts. Through Skype – a software application that enables calls to be made over the Internet – people from around the world will be able to call 311 for free. The City will use Twitter – the free, social messaging service – to ‘tweet’ information regularly about such things as alternate side of the street parking status, schools closures and information about citywide events. 311NYC tweets will be 140 or fewer characters in length and can be sent to any mobile device via texting, instant messaging or the web. Information about emergency events and services will continue to be accessible via Notify NYC.

Google Collaboration to Improve Site Content on NYC.gov

The Mayor also announced that the City is working with Google to use Google search patterns to better understand the usage of NYC.gov and ultimately improve site content. By analyzing trends for New York City-related searches made by Google users, the City will tailor content to user preferences and improve costumer service.

—END PRESS RELEASE—

The competition will make about 80 data sets from 32 city agencies and commissions available to developers to create “applications to help Internet users navigate vast stores of data in areas like citywide events, property sales, recreational facilities and restaurant inspections.”

It will be run by the NYC Economic Development Corporation and the winner will get a cash prize, a dinner with Mayor Bloomberg, and marketing opportunities.

At the same time, unrelated to PDF09, a meeting on Open Data Standards in NYC was held by the New York City Council Committee on Technology in Government.

Looks like data is definitely getting some love (or at the very least, lip service) in New York. I wasn’t able to make either event, so if you did, let me know how it went in the comments!

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

New York City addressing data availability, uses

On top of the Empire State Building, Manhattan, New York City, by meironke.

One of the things that makes doing web journalism in New York City absolutely frustrating is the lack of online data.

I’m not looking for anything strange. The first data set I wanted was crime reports that include individual crimes and locations. NYPD publishes weekly crime statistics, but not data that could easily be plotted on a map.

It absolutely stuns me that one of the biggest, most famous cities in the world is so backward. And why hasn’t the police department been slammed with FOIAs from every journalist in the city for the past 15 years?

Guardian DataStore

About a week ago I posted to Twitter an idea for creating a data hub for NYC, in the vein of The Guardian’s Data Store. Everyblock does a good job of the collecting what data NYC does put online, but their job isn’t to track down city departments and convince them that providing clean data in multiple, usable formats would be to their benefit.

About a year ago, some journalists were complaining about the “data ghettos” that began popping up on newspaper websites. The problem was/is that newspaper organizations began publishing databases without context.

How would my NYC data hub be different?

It’s not. I don’t envision this as journalism. It is, instead a service provided TO journalists.

The idea needs some more fleshing out, some investors, and a business model. But it’s doable, and necessary. I don’t ever want to hear another editor turn down an idea because it will take 2 years and a FOIA to get the required data.

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

Data in New York City

Developed Handstand Kids Toast to Dads site using Wordpress. Launched 6/2/2009.

Skills: CSS, Design, PHP

Medium: Web

CMS: Wordpress

Feedback: “Having a children’s cookbook company, it’s essential for me to work with someone pleasant, efficient, and timely. Megan has surpassed all my expectations, while working within my budget. She is an asset to my company and I hope to continue our work relationship for years to come.” – Yvette Garfield, Owner of Handstand Kids Cookbook Company

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

Toast to Dads / Handstand Kids Cookbook Company

I live in the West Bronx area of New York City. The neighborhoods in this area are diverse, the history is complicated, and the stigma of the Bronx is strong.

There is no metro paper that covers these neighborhoods. The New York Times, Daily News, New York Post and Gothamist occasionally cover political and crime issues in the area, but no major paper is giving this group of communities a voice.

Instead, residents are given a voice in the small local papers that are part of the Bronx News Network. Rather than focusing on breaking news items and fighting over scoops, these papers work together. The Bronx News Network is a nonprofit organization founded by Mosholu Preservation Corporation and the Norwood News.

The Bronx News Network includes the Tremont Tribune, the Norwood News (for which I freelance), the Mott Haven Herald, the Mount Hope Monitor, the Hunts Point Express and the Highbridge Horizon.

None of these papers are dailies. They publish anywhere from every two weeks to once a month. But they still provide an important source of news and opinion to an under-served community. They have unimpressive websites and tiny offices. And they are surviving in a time when the news industry is in trouble. They will continue to survive, and not just because they are the only ones providing this service to this area.

Small community newspapers will be able to provide targeted advertising, the bane of the major metro.

They can react quickly to the changes in technology and society.

They live in the areas they write about.

I don’t want to say that tiny papers are the future of journalism, because the future for journalism will not be any one thing. The future will depend on each community, and how the community interacts with the producers of journalism.

I am saying that this model seems to be working really well for this particular community. And it’s important to look at what is working where, and see what can be applied in other areas.

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

Small community newspapers and the future of journalism

I think it’s fantastic that Obama is following through on his promise to make government more transparent, and looking forward to Data.gov being a very useful tool. Right now though, it’s a bit wimpy. While there is a lot of data available in machine-readable formats, it hasn’t been translated into visualizations that humans can easily understand.

I should mention that US Government Web Services and XML Data Sources, a non-government site, has been collecting data released by the government and releasing mobile applets for a long time now.

In reaction to the launch of Data.gov, Sunlight Labs has launched Apps for America 2:

Just as the federal government begins to provide data in Web developer-friendly formats, we’re organizing Apps for America 2: The Data.gov Challenge to demonstrate that when government makes data available, it makes itself more accountable and creates more trust and opportunity in its actions. The contest submissions will also show the creativity of developers in designing compelling applications that provide easy access and understanding for the public, while also showing how open data can save the government tens of millions of dollars by engaging the development community in application development at far cheaper rates than traditional government contractors.

A post on the White House blog, “Your Government & New Media,” encourages people to find out where agencies are getting involved online and use these venues to communicate with the government.

So, look for opportunities to jump in and connect with your government — at our websites and blogs, through videos and photos, in social networks, through widgets, podcasts, and more. Abraham Lincoln knew what he was talking about. This is government of the people, by the people, for the people.

View, comment, rate, participate, and share. The government is paying attention, even as we continue to learn ourselves. The more people engage, the more meaningful all of this becomes, and the more progress we can make.

Here is a list of examples of government being “cooler and more approachable than you think.” (Descriptions are added from each site.) I gathered these from multiple blogs and websites.

• EPA’s Pick 5 to help the environment

Do more to protect the environment by choosing at least five actions (below) you’ll commit to. Pick 5 also helps you identify more actions you can take in the future. Then let others know what you committed to through Pick Five. Show the actions you’ve taken.

• National Park Service Facebook App

You may use this application to share and view stories, experiences and galleries related to your experience our our nations wonderful National Park system.

• Library of Congress Flickr photo stream

The Prints & Photographs Division takes care of 14 million of the Library’s pictures and features more than 1 million through online catalogs. Offering historical photo collections through Flickr is a welcome opportunity to share some of our most popular images more widely.



• Peer-to-Patent project

Recently a group of academic and business professionals have proposed a collaborative, online process in which members of the public pool together their knowledge and locate potential prior art. This pilot will test whether such collaboration can effectively locate prior art that might not otherwise be located by the Office during the typical examination process.

• Presidential Directives and Executive Orders

In this section you will find official actions by the President that have a significant impact on how the federal government functions but do not require legislation or Congressional approval. See listings below of the official Proclamations, Presidential Memoranda, and Executive Orders that President Obama has issued since his inauguration.

• Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.

• Transparency and Open Government

We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.



• Recovery.gov

As the centerpiece of the President’s commitment to transparency and accountability, Recovery.gov will feature information on how the Act is working, tools to help you hold the government accountable, and up-to-date data on the expenditure of funds.

• White House Blog, Health Care Reform Forum (slideshow), Live Streaming from the White House, Open for Questions, Podcasts, President’s Weekly Address
• Town Hall in Turkey
• Serve.gov

This website is a new portal for you and all Americans to find your own ways to serve in your own communities. Just choose your keyword – “education,” “environment,” or whatever interests you – and type in your zip code to see what opportunities our partner organizations have in your area. Americans are putting their own country back on the right track, be a part of it.

• Troop Tube

TroopTube is the new online video site designed to help military families connect and keep in touch while miles apart.

• TSA blog and other federal blogs
• U.S. Government channel on YouTube

The official YouTube channel of the U.S. Government, linking you to videos across government. Visit the playlists and other channels for a wide variety of interesting videos!



• State Department’s DipNote blog, on Twitter, on Facebook

Official Blog of the U.S. Department of State – offers the public an alternative source to mainstream media for U.S. foreign policy information. This blog offers the opportunity for participants to discuss important foreign policy issues with senior Department officials.

• USA.gov, USA.gov’s government FAQs, email and online chat, USA.gov on Twitter

As the U.S. government’s official web portal, USA.gov makes it easy for the public to get U.S. government information and services on the web. USA.gov also serves as the catalyst for a growing electronic government.



• FBI widgets

Add links to FBI content by incorporating the widgets and modules below into your own website or blog.

• Open Government Dialogue

This online brainstorming session, open from May 21st to 28th, 2009, will enable the White House to hear your most important ideas relating to open government.

• Open Government Initiative and Innovations Gallery

Consistent with the President’s mandate, we want to be fully transparent in our work, participatory in soliciting your ideas and expertise, and collaborative in how we experiment together to use new tools and techniques for developing open government policy.

I hope these sites are useful to those interested in becoming involved in the direction of government for the next several years. If I missed any good ones, please leave them in the comments!

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

The Government, the Internet and Data

Us Now from Banyak Films on Vimeo. Buy the DVD here and for more information, extra clips and reviews please go to usnowfilm.com.

The raw footage of the interviews has also been released, which you can see on the Us Now site, including transcripts. Notable among the interviewees is Clay Shirky, who wrote about newspapers in March, talking about Ebbsfleet United, leadership and revolutions.

Secondly, Cory Doctorow, advocate of the free, open Internet, had an interview on the Search Engine podcast for TVOntario. Everything Doctorow says is smart, so have a listen.

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

People talking about the Internet

This is a blog ring for young journalists around the world. Each month, we will debate a set topic by posting here and on our own blogs.

This month, the journalism job market will be flooded with new, eager journalists. It’s a nervous time for all. Many graduates from last year haven’t yet settled into journalism, and yet now they have to contend with a couple more thousand rivals.

Tips, knowledge and experience are essential — but how do you get them? Where do you look?

New graduates: What are your worries? Your questions? Your confusions? Put them to the other journalists in this ring — we may just have the perfect answer.

Other young journalists: You were here once. What did you do? How did you land that first important job? What got the ball rolling?

My Story

A year ago I started the adventure they call life after college. I had the rest of my life (a.k.a. the next 6 months) planned out with confidence: a two-week photography class in Berlin, Germany was to be followed by an internship at The Miami Herald.

Things went swimmingly, until I realized that the end date of my internship was nearing and somehow I didn’t have anything else lined up. Job applications and interviews had gone nowhere, and I had done with being picky.

One thing led to another, and a fellow JWJ (Journalist Without a Job) and I decided that New York City would be the perfect place for two multi-talented news addicts to find work. You can read about that adventure in “Sink, Florida, Sink.”

Here I am, nine months in New York. I’ve had two non-news internships, both terminated early due to the economic crisis. I started freelancing a few months ago, taking on any job I thought I could do: web design and development, video production, news writing.

Somehow, I’ve managed to keep my head above water.

Dave Lee recently wrote, in “J-students must stick around and clear up the mess”

Just spend your day being a journalist. Get shifts, even if it’s one day a week. Apply for anything that’s remotely near to a newsroom. Work on the reception if you have to.
You need to make sure you’re in the industry when it’s back on the way up.

This is the motivation behind almost everything I’ve done since I moved to New York.

After cold-calling and e-mailing every publisher in the city failed to produce a bill-paying income, I took two unrelated internships and spent all my free time wriggling into every gap I could find.

I found the Bronx Youth Journalism Initiative through some searches on local news papers. I contacted the program leaders asking if I could help, in any way, shape or form. They asked me to help them with a website, which led to talking to students about online journalism, which led to freelancing for the Norwood News. Word is, I might also be asked to teach the newsroom some web skills.

PBS MediaShift blog host Mark Glaser asked me to write a series on innovative journalism projects. I can’t even count how many new contacts I made while researching and interviewing journalists all over the country. And while it hasn’t directly led to any new gigs yet, I follow every one of those people on Facebook and Twitter. They are a valuable addition to my network.

I’m barely keeping my toes immersed in the dwindling pool that is journalism. But I take every opportunity to mention to everyone I meet: I want to do journalism.

But you don’t really care about my story. You just want to know how to keep your own head up.

The Takeaway

Meet everyone you can. Go to every conference, search for every possible resource that could help you.

Read/watch these interviews, collected by David Cohn: Who I’ve Learned From – 107 Interviews.

Read these articles collected by Tracy Boyne: 85 Resources to Pass the Time During Your Next Furlough.

Do 18 Things For Journalism Students To Do With Their Summer.

Getting started is hard. How do you start pitching stories? How do you meet editors who can help you? How do you find out about opportunities?

Stay plugged in. Follow every journalist on Twitter and Facebook, pay attention to what they say. Follow the news, and just start e-mailing story ideas to editors. It’s hard, and it’s scary, but eventually it pays off.

Find a way to pay the bills, and then find a way to stay involved.

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

TNTJ May: You Don’t Have to Be a Journalist to be a Journalist

That’s how the e-mail I got introduced it too. “a blog by Ezra Klein.” Pardon me, but who the @#$% is Ezra Klein?

Klein comes to The Post from The American Prospect, where he quickly built a dedicated following and became a widely recognized voice.

OK, nice credentials, but I still have no idea who this guy is.

Apparently he is going to write pretty extensively on “legislative issues at the top of the Obama administration’s agenda, including economic recovery, reviving the banking system, cap and trade, and health-care reform.”

Important stuff. Why didn’t you lead with that, instead of expecting me to recognize a by-line?

The blog itself is off to a pretty good start, even if Washington Post PR isn’t.

• A section called “Think Tank” will be updated with articles, studies, and policy briefs.
• Ezra Klein is on Twitter.
• His blogroll links outside of Washington Post blogs.

No word on how much he’ll interact with his readers, so I’ll withhold judgment on that point.

Oops, Ezra didn’t write his own About page:

Beatblogging.org has what Ezra needs to know to make his blog rock: Creating the perfect beatblog.

More about Ezra Klein:

Related articles by Zemanta

Political Blogger Ezra Klein Joins The Washington Post (readwriteweb.com)

Ezra Klein to WaPo (outsidethebeltway.com)

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

New Washington Post Blog on Economic and Domestic Policy

Article Skimmer

A while ago I wrote about the Article Skimmer interface that the New York Times had developed.

Times Wire

Those people just don’t quit – the Times Wire was recently launched to provide a constantly updating “river of news,” including pictures.

This comes in the wake of a few other news visualization updates:

Google News Timeline

Google’s News Timeline searches multiple data sources and places the results in chronological order, allowing the user to scroll, drag or click through the evolution of a topic.

Google News

Google News has also been redesigned, with more videos and photos on section pages and some clutter clean-up.

Old Newsmap

The Newsmap, by Marcos Weskamp, also received an update recently.

New in Newsmap, from the blog:

• rectangularized treemap layout: To accommodate text properly, cells are as rectangular as possible, this there’s more room for headlines without chopping them off in several lines.
• search as you type: try the new search on the top right, see how newsmap updates.
• deep linking: you can now deep link to any state of the app. just try updating your view, and notice how the url changes. You can grab and share that url with anyone.

New Newsmap

I really like these different ways of seeing news. They are each targeted toward a purpose: seeing the most recent news, seeing news from different sources or seeing news over time.

What other news visualizations are out there? Which do you prefer? Or, do you prefer to browse through news Web sites instead?

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

Visualizing the News

Nearly 20 other Bronx locals who were asked about the program agreed with A.J. that gun crime would not be significantly affected by programs like the gun buy-back event, which coincided with 13 shooting incidents in the borough that weekend.

Published in the May 14, 2009 edition of the Norwood News.

Skills: Writing, Blogging, Reporting

Medium: Text

Post from: Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

NYPD Buys Guns, but Residents Doubt Effects / Norwood News