Media Mill Gazette 114 Data as a system, not so open, enormous and opal fruits...Yes! It's Media Mill!

Open data, Open Government Data and Data journalism news from the Media Mill project.

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When a piece starts " I wrote a pair of algorithms to place nearly 3,000 names on the 9/11 memorial in Manhattan" you know there is a story. Jer Thorpe's piece 'You Say Data, I Say System' makes a compelling case for seeing data as a part in a bigger system; the names between the "half-inch expansion joints". Fascinating stuff.

Meanwhile, it looks like there'll be more data for us to consider as Google begin to consider the impact 'enormous data'. An interesting article from Wired puts it into perspective and raises the issue of data silos at the same time

Mapping and data giants ESRI want to build an open data hub that builds better citizens. A similar goal to Camden Council who want to use open data to boost public sector innovation. So, perhaps its a timely moment to consider the gaps access to and ownership of data. Luckily Audrey Lobo-Pulo has part two of her series looking at the the promises, the disillusion, and the panacea of open data.

I've managed to find a bit of time to look at this years Data journalism awards. In particular. I wanted to take a look at the open data category to see if data journalism had embraced the idea of making their data open. The TL:DR? Maybe.

A nice use of by Emu Analytics of the recently released green spaces data from the OS. They've added Strava data so you can see how people use the green spaces for exercise.

"Two Luxembourgs, 10 Madrids, one Delaware: How a giant iceberg is described around the world" The title says it all really...

There's a nice piece by Ben Proctor about making use of Open Data. The data in this case is was a recent data release of Wales' Audit Office Local Government Financial Statements. Its a good luck at the way open data encourages exploration and there's a link to a post looking at the process of opening up the data. In a similar vein, its worth checking out Pete Nuckley from the GoodThingsFoundation who writes about the value of working in the open.

RJ Andrews has a nice freebie on offer. It's a font for chart lovers called chartCaps. Great fun

Andy Kirk reckons if you 'think like a journalist', you'll find more ways to experiment with data viz. I wonder how many journalists think about Opal Fruits...

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