10,000 Words :: blog recommendation

A must-read everyday. Mark Luckie aggregates his own ideas, smart thinking from around the journalism/media universe. This particular post gives another set of tools for data visualization.

One of the most popular trends in online journalism is taking publicly available data and translating it into visualizations or infographics that readers and viewers can quickly and easily understand. A large percentage of the visualizations you see on the web were built from scratch, which can take a considerable amount of time and effort. The following sites allow you to mash your data in record time.

Widgenie lets users upload data from a variety of sources such as Excel spreadsheets, CSV files or Google Spreadsheets and using a drag and drop interface to create custom charts and graphs. Once the data has been arranged and styled, it is presented as a widget that can be embedded in web sites and social networks.

Like the previously mentioned sites, Verifiable allows users to upload, mash and visualize data. Verifiable just launched earlier this year and has fewer publicly available data sets, but it does offer greater flexibility on how the data is styled and presented. Graphic designers will appreciate the ability to change and tweak the presentation and add details like custom labels and shading. Verifiable is free to use if you keep your charts public, but also has a inexpensive pricing plan for those who want to keep their work private.

DataMasher There are a lot of cool things about DataMasher: the available datasets, the community built around that data, the unique visualization tools, and the easy-to-use interface of the site. What is truly intriguing about the site is the way users take two different datasets and create visual hypotheses. For example, to visualize the Most Reproductive States (US), one user combined the number of US births witH population figures from the 2008 US Census. At the very least, DataMasher and the other sites listed here are great resources for generating ideas on how to mix and remix various datasets.

Also on 10,000 Words:• Data centers, APIs and what they mean to journalism• 12 ways to find the best in data visualization• Where to find the best online interactive maps• News databases: Turning numbers into knowledge• 5 Ways to take your map mashups to the next levelLabels: database, design

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