Take a look at the online presentation of this investigation by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, built on a custom database the paper constructed, and then imagine there was a free, easy widget to use for embedding a search gateway onto websites.
Every PTA website in Florida would have it installed before nightfall.
Let's get there first.
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Yes, that was interesting... but it was slow and worked poorly on my Mac.
ReplyDeleteI lost interest and left for Newsvine :).
Free and easy widgets, well, firstly are often not free or easy. Secondly, they need data behind them. I'm not even sure we think that way yet, or if we do, we come up with it as the story's being paginated, "Hey, here's a great idea... call so-in-so at home, he won't mind!"
And, come to think of it "custom database" hardware is hard to come by in my neck of the MNI woods, especially for online projects.
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Try reversing the thinking.
ReplyDeleteWe can use "free and easy" widgets from outside sources to bring outside information to our websites.
Like regional photos from Flickr. But beware corporate warnings about going to particular websites -- they can get in the way of the widget, for us or other corporate surfers.
Or we could try to persuade our open government employees to build widgets that we -- and others -- can use to see and sort government databases. We don't have to own the hardware, write the software or even produce all the content. We do need to edit and present it well.
Or... maybe we do need to write the software and produce the content.
ReplyDeleteHow about we make widgets for other people? Isn't that what we do, provide information?
How 'bout putting our regional photos on Flickr?
How's that for reversing your reversing :)!
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