Newsmap idea could be worth stealing

Written by Adrian Holovaty on April 1, 2004

Newsmap is fascinating. It's a graphical way of looking at the top stories in the news landscape, using information gleaned from Google News. The site's creator has written a bit about how it works. (Thanks for the pointer, John Battelle.)

I don't think this exact approach would work for a local news operation, such as the one I work for, because, frankly, there's not that much local news in a single day -- and the graphic would look more like a Rothko than a mosaic.

But some slightly different approaches might work. How about graphics that display...

  • ...the most-covered topics in a particular newspaper over a time period. If a site's publishing system categorizes stories, it can, in theory, create a list of the categories containing the most stories.
  • ...the most important news stories on a site over a time period. A single day's worth of news might be too little, but a month's worth could work.
  • ...the most commented-on news stories for a news site with user comments enabled on a per-story basis.

Comments

Posted by marcos on April 1, 2004, at 10:15 a.m.:

why would you steal it when you could simply drop me a line and maybe talk some business?

mail [ATT] marcosweskamp {DOTT} com

is my add:-)

best regards,

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