Tag Archives: Hacks and Hackers London

#hhldn: Miso project & Renew interactive rubbish bins

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#hhldn: Miso project & Renew bins

A brief roundup of tweets from May’s Hacks and Hackers London meetup, which featured talks on the Miso project and Renew interactive rubbish bins. First up: Alastair Dant and Alex Graul presenting the Miso project, a set of code libraries to help people build their own data visualisations.

Storified by Mary Hamilton · Wed, May 30 2012 05:09:55

at #HHLdn, @ajdant & @AlexGraul presenting @TheMisoProject http://misoproject.comLaurian Gridinoc
#hhldn @ajdant & @alexgraul talking about @themisoproject & journalism in the age of data.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn @ajdant: ManyEyes was an early visualisation tool but has petered out somewhat – partly coz it’s Java, partly IBM not developing itMary Hamilton
#hhldn @ajdant: Google Charts was useful, but Google pulled the plug. Swivel was visualisation startup but shut down coz couldn’t make moneyMary Hamilton
Two years ago, newsrooms relied on flash (not html5) says presenter at #hhldn.Elana Zak
#hhldn @ajdant: Flash vs HTML5: Flash no longer seen as futureproof so databiz has moved to web standards. Takes longer, much more testing.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn @ajdant: strong dataviz contenders: Google public data explorer, powered by Fusion tables; Tableau (needs sophisticated authoring)Mary Hamilton
.@ajdant and @AlexGraul taking us through the past and future of digital data visualisation at #hhldn http://instagr.am/p/K-pnR7wF31/Peter MacRobert
#hhldn @ajdant: now, open source software has exploded & experiments are everywhere. People are committing to sharing their work.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn @ajdant: there is no magic dataviz bullet. Don’t want to do churnalistic thing of pulling out the same interactives over & over.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn @ajdant: customisation is awesome. So is combination. Lots of dataviz platforms fall down through lack of interoperation.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn @ajdant: we took the idea of 2012 as #codeyear & started to build JavaScript libraries for dataviz. Led to @themisoprojectMary Hamilton
#hhldn @ajdant: We put emphasis on libraries rather than a magic "visualise this!" button.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn @alexgraul: Miso is aimed at making it easier to make stuff, not a magic button. Also not just a way to make Guardian stuff.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn @alexgraul: aim is to make interactive & data-driven storytelling faster, richer & better.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn @alexgraul: To make combined timeline/map with key (eg mapping IED attacks) work you need data management & component management.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn @alexgraul: You need flow in order to express a narrative, & you need state management.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn @alexgraul: 3 layers, all operating sensibly together. Like a prefab structure. Lets you focus on what you’re doing rather than how.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn @alexgraul: Making reusable structures for code means barrier to entry much lower; as people learn they can customise.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn @ajdant on mobile: no good just reflowing interactives onto small screens. @alexgraul: sometimes on mobile you need different contentMary Hamilton
More on Miso: http://www.journalism.co.uk/a548892 Ignore the fact it says ‘guardian-style’. Corrected by @alexgraul at #hhldnSarahMarshall3
#hhldn http://instagr.am/p/K-r9X4qKjY/kevt
The second speakers were from Renew, which created a new display system for the sides of rubbish bins in London, and then started inviting publishers to futz around with it and make things.
More details here about the Renew Media Pods (bins) http://renewsolution.com/ #hhldnKathryn Corrick
#hhldn Renew: won 21-year contract to supply London with the world’s most expensive bins.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn Renew: wanted to put web pages on the street. People have been using public space to communicate for years, but only one way in past.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn Renew: we have a lot of reach. Brands want us to put ads there: we want to try putting content there.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn Renew: 8 days after we launched our CMS supplier went bankrupt. We had to either buy it ourselves or kill it.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn Renew: took 96 hours for geek squad to kill everything we’d spent 18 months making & put it in browser. Realised we’d built a channelMary Hamilton
.@Economist and @TimeOutLondon working with renew to bring news to screens on bins in London c/o City of London #HHLdnHannah RW
#hhldn Renew: "Content is digital bait." Got writers. Writing stories in 1/3 length of tweets wi big pics: new format. 2-4 second news.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn Renew: publishers started to show interest. We realised we could remove ourselves as bottleneck & see what else can be done.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn Renew: it’s not TV, no direction. Not digital as you’d have at home. Consumed while walking past.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn Renew: challenges: fight screen blindness & default assumption it’s an ad; use pods to inform/entertain/interact.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn Renew: started opening up platform for devs. Made SDK. Held hackathon. Had parallel hackathon next door trying to make SDK work.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn Renew: example apps: Boris bike availability app; weather; markets; made tiny crossword (1 up, 1 down) with News Int.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn Renew: held local data hackathon. "Are You Hungry?" with Yelp gives directions to nearby restaurants. 4sq made "be the first at" app.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn Renew: Closed Captioned team: mining for local tweets, made hashtag survey app.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn Renew: "Dodge them or join them" tells you where people are & lets you dodge crowds. http://pic.twitter.com/qbKjDl3fMary Hamilton
Like the idea of screen on a bin saying ‘most people are over there’ –> based on @foursquare checkins locations. @renewtweets at #HHLdnHannah RW
#hhldn Aha! Renew are @renewtweet.Mary Hamilton
Ah so that’s what that LCD bin by St. Pauls is. #HHLdn #mysterysolvedsamthetechie
#hhldn @RenewTweet: this is a model that works for breaking news. Gives example of Greek bailout.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn @RenewTweet: focussing on financial centres. 1 in Manhattan outside NYSE: police got worried coz their robot couldn’t look inside.Mary Hamilton
Q&A of @renewtweet people right now at #hhldn. Really interesting stuff. http://twitpic.com/9og8mxPablo M. Fernández
#hhldn @RenewTweet: there’s potential for brand tie-in but we want to avoid "buy this thing now" because it turns people off.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn @RenewTweet: v difficult to make audience do anything they wouldn’t already do. Hence have to build content that’s passive & fast.Mary Hamilton
#hhldn More info about the binpodscreenthings at http://bit.ly/KbaDsQMary Hamilton

#hhldn: sex, lies, and digital disruption

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Fantastic couple of talks at last night’s Hacks & Hackers London meetup. Unfortunately today I’m off to make a newspaper in a field (again) so don’t have time for a full writeup – but I was live tweeting throughout the talks and I’ve Storified them here:

Sex, lies and instant messenger – Alec Muffett

How digital journalism destroyed the news cycle, and what we can do about it – Martin Belam