09:33:31 am, Categories: Computers and Internet, Open Source, 615 words Posted by: Joseph A. di Paolantonio
Hacking the Newspaper: How an Open-Source Nerd from Kansas is Revitalizing Journalism, Rob Curley, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.
Yesterday, Rob gave this talk in four hours at Berkeley - today, he's drinking Red Bull, and he'll be giving it in 30 minutes or he'll be pissing himself. There you go. OH, and he's using a Mac. No problem then. 
Open Source is rarely used in traditional journalism. But, now, meet Django.
Wahingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive is all about openness in everything.
The Jayhawk Basketball ticket controversy... How not to go from a system where the only way to get into a game was to have your grandparents die, leave the tickets to your parents, who die and leave the tickets to you, to a system where you can get tickets based on how much you donate to the University. Internology - get a student with a digital camera to sit in every seat in the stadium with a digital camera, and post the results as drill-down from a seating chart of the stadium. That's great, but don't post the internal memos about the decision making on the same page. 
Starting in 2001, they began using SMS text messaging from the web site to get information out about things like T-ball games for the kids. It evolved to send things like tornado warnings, but really, the most important thing is T-ball.
Stats to the max, with bios unlike most you will see - like arrest records. And FutureHawks, where kids could send in and sign letters of intent to play for the Jayhawks, and then report on how they played in their last game. All with supplemental data gathered in the most accurate manner possible - calling the players' Moms.
Forecast - comes from wind blowing by local landmarks easily recognized by students and alumni - e.g. the doughnut shop.
Live chats in Django.
Getting virtual - or a good excuse to expense an Xbox. Publish a full game story, with video, from a simulated game with the same teams playing that day. For the first three games, they came closer to predicting the outcome than Las Vegas.
They took these ideas to Florida's retirement community - can these ideas and technologies meet the needs of a diametrically opposed demographic. Yes.
The restaurant guide in a database that answers questions like Vegetarian Friendly and is there a dock to park the boat, but most importantly, a time-sensitive database to discover when the restaurant starts and stops cooking. When they saw that all the old folk in Naples, FL had iPods, they moved the restaurant guide to that white piece of plastic. And so the team could find pancakes at 2:00 a.m. [when the bars close, isn't it?] they put it on the mobile phone. And since you needed pancakes at 2:00 a.m. they started GODcasting - services on the go.
Contents how you want it: iPod, mobile, PSP. In the newspaper industry, if you can get your content on a device, you can expense. Expect many more devices to be supported soon.
OnBeing gets the real scope from the horse's mouth - the person on the street and the videographer and the audience's comments. The interviews take an hour, and are edited down to 90 seconds.
Questions
Paying for support? One programmer on staff at their skunkworks, who write Django and supports it.
Why was Django created? They needed the "cliff notes" of programming, so that they could have an idea at lunch and go live with it by supper.
The real story for me from this high energy presentation was the power of innovation in custom software development. 'Tis great that Django is available for others to grow and build upon, and I would like to hear from them.
http://press.teleinteractive.net/.Mk3ucWch7fhVbndsciwcFvbhxzcQxbcj0rf7uyb2e_cnb3/trackback.php/764
The Open Source Solutions Blog is a companion to the Open Source Solutions for Business Intelligence Research Project, sponosred by InterActive Systems & Consulting, Inc. This Blog, a Wiki and Lens will be used to develop, support and publish the findings of our research into enterprise open source projects.
InterActive Systems & Consulting, Inc. (IASC) performs research in the areas of data analytics, collaboration and remote access.InterASC Professional Services, a service mark of IASC, provides strategic consulting and project management for data warehousing, business intelligence and collaboration projects using proprietary and open source solutions. We formulate vendor-independent strategies and implement solutions for information management in an increasingly complex and distributed business environment, allowing secure data analysis and collaboration that provides enterprise information in the most valuable form to the right person, whenever and wherever needed.
TeleInterActive Networks, a service mark of IASC, hosts open source applications for small and medium enterprises including CMS, blogs, wikis, database applications, portals and mobile access. We provide the tools for SME to put their customer at the center of their business, and leverage information management in a way previously reserved for larger organizations.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 |
