These are my links from May 7th to May 20th:

• BBC Radio 1′s Nick Grimshaw stumbles as it turns to age-old strategies –
• What Is Facebook EdgeRank and Why Does It Matter? [INFOGRAPHIC] – from Delicious/network/richardk http://previous.delicious.com/network/richardk
• The Story of the Season – Another great visualisation built by Anna Powell Smith using match data from football-data.co.uk
• The Absurdly Illustrated Guide To Your First Dynamic, Data Driven Timeline | Data For Radicals – A vertical data driven timeline guide using Javascript
• 50 Best Websites 2013| Full List | TIME.com – Nice little list worth delving into via @alexgamela

Emily Cadman from Financial Times mentioned in her talk at News:Rewired Excel is a good “gateway drug to data”. This idea was also discussed extensively at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia. Dr Ken Blake from Middle Tennesse State University School of Journalism agrees and through his YouTube-based Data Journalism course, he takes you from ‘the basics’ to ‘maximizing’ Excel.

In practice

I downloaded Dr Blake’s datasets for Introducing Excel and Rates ranks and filters in Excel then I loaded the videos into VideoNot.es (reviewed here). You can take a look at the timecoded notes here for Introducing Excel and Rates, ranks and filters from here. I also let Dr Blake know I was going to do this and he plans to supply these notes for all of his videos in the next few weeks.

How it helps you

Dr Blake’s tutorials look at using Excel specifically for Data Journalism, and he uses examples of sources which you may use in a newsroom including crime figures and population statistics.

Drawbacks

These are drawbacks with Excel rather than the tutorials. Of course, being a Microsoft product the software is always updating and if they have a significant overhaul (as they did in 2010) then these videos will appear dated. Excel was never designed as a Data Journalism tool, rather as a small office spreadsheet system. It is worth keeping this in mind when working on more complex projects.

Summary

A set of good introductory videos to help you get around the concept of using Excel for as a way of training you for Data Journalism, something our own Times Online Data team are looking at.

Rating

VideoNotes (launched this month) is a simple online tool that allows you to write notes alongside videos from a variety of sources including Vimeo, YouTube and Coursera. It was developed by Unishared, a French education start-up but Journalism.co.uk pointed out how it would be useful for journalists.

In practice

I took a Data Journalism panel discussion video (below) from the International Journalism Festival #ijf13 and typed in notes as I watched.

One good thing about this application is that the notes are timecoded, so when you click through them it will take you to the right place in the video. This is particularly useful in conjunction with the YouTube’s own timecoded embeds. So, for example if the main focus of your article was the impact of Nate Silver on Data Journalism you could run the discussion from this point. The other great feature of this application is that it stores the information on Google Drive, so you can collaborate on note taking. I’ve shared these notes with News International so if you work there you can see them. For the rest of you I’ve written some notes alongside a few Data Journalism tutorials. I’ll post something on this soon.

How it helps you

Not only is this a good internal research application but it could potentially be expanded to encourage collaborative and open journalism. Notes could add further context and clarification to a video and allow your audience to understand a story.

Drawbacks

This video was created with my News International Google Drive, I think in future I will use my personal Google Drive as current business restrictions mean that I couldn’t allow public collaboration on this. Although the note making device is very simple to use, it would be good to see the time codes so that specific key quotes could be more precisely cited. At the moment any attempt to correct this deletes the time code completely.

Summary

A useful tool to help guide you through video with a real potential for collaborative journalism.

Rating

Many apps have been developed to enhance smartphones’ often impressive audio recording ability but FiRe was the first to really attempt to be a professional field recorder. Initially launched on the iPhone (at a pretty high price of £3.99) it did prove to be very reliable so much so that many commercial radio stations (including GMG) encouraged reporters to use it instead of a bulky Marantz. Last year Audiofile stopped supporting FiRe and instead offered FiRe 2 an upgrade of the recorder which required you (somewhat cheekily) to buy it for another £3.99.

How it helps you

Although there are plenty of apps on the market that are easier to use this one is not only professional but also extremely flexible. You can add your own metadata which prevents the audio getting lost and can help when adding further context to an online story. With FiRe 2 there is integration with Dropbox – blowing Dropvox out of the water by a considerable distance. A sub or producer could easier pick up a story and it is easier to configure than FTP. There are also some pretty nifty editing tools so you’re out in the field getting an interview anyway you can easily file the audio before the story. And there’s Soundcloud integration which in private could be a handy archive but in public could also mean that a story could be broken on the platform.

In Practice

To test this app thoroughly, I recorded an interview using a the new app, we recorded it onto the camera microphone in an echoey dressing room whilst the interviewee ate a satsuma. The sound wave monitoring is very accurate which means you can avoid distortion. The noise quality has always been good but there’s a few more EQ settings (powered by Izotope) and extended metadata you can add before downloading. I did try editing the audio using the app but it was very fiddly, and then it crashed. I trimmed the audio (particularly the satusuma sucks) using Audacity on my computer and then uploaded to Audioboo, you get space for unlimited Boo’s on Audioboo whereas I’ve already filled my free Soundcloud account.

Drawbacks

You don’t need to have FiRe 1 installed to use FiRe 2 but, somewhat irritatingly it doesn’t incorporate the recordings you have already on the phone. There are a lot file format options on the new app but it does seem buggier than the first version.

Summary

An excellent field recorder – an average exporter – a pretty rough editor.

Rating

If This Then That (IFTTT) launched in September 2011 promising to be the “gaffer tape that holds the internet together”. This means various social media, cloud archives and even physical internet enabled products (a full list of channels here) can be connected together with simple instructions and without learning code.

In practice

Automated online activity which would require you to wrangle with the unwieldy Yahoo Pipes or the intimidating Mac Automator, is given a user-friendly interface. You can also share your favourite ‘recipes’ and allow people to use them. I use them a lot to allow for a more organic duplication of social media. For example, every image that I ‘favourite’ on Instagram automatically drops into Tumblr (under the Instagram tag) or when a new photo is uploaded by me to Flickr it also uploads them to a gallery on my Facebook page. Pictures are the currency of these social media channels and spreading them across platforms increases their exposure and engagement.

How it helps you

The reason I decided to post about this web application is because of the announcement last week Google is to discontinue its RSS Reader service after July 2013. Since I’ve been experimenting with Feedly as a replacement and implementing a process that doesn’t leave me relying too heavily on a single provider. News stories that I like are saved to Pocket from within Feedly and then from Pocket they’re piped with IFTTT to my Delicious and Pinboard bookmarks. This way I can organise my favourite stories and primary sources without depending on one web service. There are other recipes that could help your working life such as this which (once it allows for UK calls) would let you to effectively dial in a short story. If you were sending back photos or videos from a mobile phone you could speed publish across multiple platforms or notify a desk editor automatically. You can also sync certain documents with Google Drive or even use Google Drive to collect data on a single spreadsheet which might be useful for Data Journalism.

Drawbacks

Although there are 60 active channels on IFTTT with 433,065 tasks created by users in its first year it can be frustrating when you realise that your new app is not included. Particularly disappointing for me is Google Plus’s refusal to let people automate its updates (pages or personal) or Twitter’s restriction of their API. This platform really depends on an open internet.

Summary

A simple way of controlling your web and mobile activity.

Rating

History

Many of you who have worked with web content management systems or your own personal blog will have a basic understanding of HTML. Just by clicking on the HTML tab or by holding down CTRL+U you can get a grasp of what is going on behind any web page. But CSS can be a mystery as it is rarely placed within HTML (called inline). CSS stands for “Cascading Style Sheet” so instructions should be entered into a separate page within a website’s directory. As Online Journalist Mindy McAdams points out the excellent web-based coding guide Codeacademy often loses people at inline. This online tutorial takes about 20 minutes to run through and very simply explains the fundamentals of CSS.

In practice

I used what I’d learnt to completely change the overall look of a Tumblr website, also to stop to the Footer shooting up to the middle of the page when viewing this website in Internet Explorer.

How it helps you

If you use any website to collect together your stories, build feature ideas or grow an online audience, then knowing the fundamentals of CSS  means you can customise your site to appear more professional. A basic understanding of HTML and CSS is needed if you want to scrape any kind of website, as Classes are often used to mark-up useful information and (as explained in The Data Journalism Handbook) can help convert a web page into a usable spreadsheet format.

Drawbacks

I would have liked more opportunity to try out the code. When you try and apply the CSS there is a missing link which has to be pieced together by reading this tutorial. I realised I needed to select the class by writing and using the correct “selector”. As with many of these tutorials, it’s going to slip straight out of your head if you don’t apply it a few times.

Summary

An easy to follow tutorial, which needs further joining up for application.

Rating

History

Tweetbot took advantage of Twitter’s relatively open API to develop an iPhone native app which easily outshone their basic mobile offering. Although Twitter significantly upped its game with a redesign last year (following the acquisition of Tweetie and its coder), Tweetbot broke free from some of Twitter’s more idealistic attributes – including the patronising and advertising heavy #discover option.

In practice

You can very easily flick between multiple accounts, lists and searches. Particularly useful is Tweetbot’s “gestures” – a simple swipe and you can view replies or conversations on any tweet. Tap once to view a link, hold down to use the link or save to any number of apps, or configure triple tap options for yourself.

How it helps you

For feeding back tweets and multimedia on the move it is very good, especially with the facility to upload in the background. Also, not only can you flick between multiple Twitter personalities (for example public and private you) but you can keep track of Twitter lists. You can even turn a Twitter list into your timeline of contacts’ tweets or monitor keep on top of a story by monitoring a hashtag.

Drawbacks

Although it can be always on you have to drag down to refresh your timeline. If you want to keep abreast of several areas you have to swipe around. Tweetbot only has column based filtering and searching in the iPad app. Both iOS apps come with a £1.99 price tag. And beware, if you like it and want to start using it on your Mac then it’ll cost you £13.99 – apparently raised by Tweetbot to discourage too many users after Twitter restricted its API.  Perhaps because of this, we’re unlikely to see anything developed for Android or PC anytime soon.

Summary

A neat, fast and easy way to keep on top of Twitter on your iPhone.

Rating

History

Cowbird launched on December 8, 2011 and immediately became a place for people from the Occupy Wall Street movement to share their stories. Last year National Geographic used the website to help residents from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to tell their stories. It’s easy to see why it would appeal to National Geographic as it allows you to tell stories with strong images. A few weeks ago it was announced there is now an embed option, allowing you to place your stories on most websites.

In practice

I uploaded a photo and told a small story. Cowbird has a freemium model so one image is the maximum you can upload without paying $60 to become a “citizen”. Other advantages of being a citizen is the ability to link stories and further customise your stories such as adding your own handwriting, adding hyperlinks, changing the colour palate and further interacting with the community. But there’s nothing to stop you putting different stories in parallel in one post, but if you wanted to use the platform to collect other people’s stories around a subject then you’d have to pay. Although the embed (below) is nice,  on Cowbird the story fills the screen and has a stronger impact.

The share (or “retelling”) facilities are pretty easy for Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr. Although, as with many inbuilt autopost functions they don’t embed natively to their platform or tag properly. I found it nicer to just use the embed function on my Tumblr page for example.

How it helps you

The stories that you can create are best accompanied by strong photo stories. You can also embed audio so there’s nothing to stop you from telling media rich stories. If you do decide to opt for citizenship then this could all be built into the platform and the multipage option would allow you to tell longer stories, even comic strips or data stories.

Drawbacks

All the best functions come at a price. The embed function is good but the mobile interface is less appealing. Although this is probably not the central aim of this site, it would be difficult to collate a breaking news story, as this requires citizenship.

Summary

A intriguing way to tell multimedia stories without learning any HTML.

Rating

History

Soo Meta is a browser based editing tool which according to the website blurb allows you to create multimedia stories in minutes.

How it helps you

As well as marketers and educators, this tool was created with journalists in mind “Viewers expect more and more visual content. It’s time to deliver short movies, rich-media stories in your posts! Your audience will love it!” Like with Popcorn Maker the idea is that you enrich your original media by adding more multimedia frills. The video demonstrates how to use the Google bookmarklet to collect words, video and images from around the web, this has the added advantage of allowing you to cite your sources.

In practice

It took longer than “a few minutes” to get to grips with this tool. This is because the demonstration video only shows how to grab material via the bookmarklet, yet it doesn’t show you how to install the bookmarklet. Once I’d worked that out I was well into my story. When I attempt to install in Chrome it crashed, I finally installed it in Firefox but was unable to view the video in this browser. I had to complete the edit in Chrome then add the images again (so it carried across the metadata) in Firefox. More than once whilst hopping about I crashed my browser and had to step back. Finally, here’s what I created:

Drawbacks

Aside from the browser malfunctions, there’s very little support for this tool and you are pretty much on your own when it comes to working out what’s wrong. Even more unhelpfully if you do try and Google “Soo cut” (the name of the bookmarklet) you get a load of “soo cute” images and chintzy Google aps.

Summary

A great idea which appears simple but can be frustratingly tricky in practice.

Rating