December 2009

• How To Play with Google Maps and Twitter API – woorkup.com
  Kevin: A nice tutorial on how to use Twitter with good examples of the API calls. Basic API calls are really nothing more than hackable URLs, which is something that even non-developers like myself can understand. The only thing I'd caution about this tutorial is that Twitter search API has been flakey for most of 2009. Not something I'd rely on.
  (tags: tutorial twitter maps geocoding programming api mashup google)

{ 0 comments }

• NPR Hires Key Staff For Local News Effort; Finalizes Station List
  Kevin: National Public Radio in the US is launching an ambitious local news effort known as Project Argo. They have $3m in foundation support from the Knight Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This hire definitely caught my eye. "Knight Foundation’s Matt Thompson, co-producer of viral hit Epic 2004, joins as editorial product manager Feb. 1." NPR head of digital Kinsey Wilson says the project is aimed at replacing what newspapers have traditionally done as newspapers continue to struggle. The project partners with a dozen stations across the country, although most are big city stations and most are in coastal states. Each station will have a blogger-journalist to contribute to the project.
  (tags: local npr radio)

{ 0 comments }

• Is A Tablet At The Heart Of Apple's Upcoming TV Subscription?
  Kevin: Apple is reportedly in talks with US TV networks for subscription TV services. Apple TV hasn't seemed to get a lot of love from Steve Jobs, but it sounds like iTunes TV subscriptions will be part of a broader hardware strategy from Apple which includes the mythical Apple tablet. Publishers like Conde Nast are already preparing to deliver content to Apple's tablet and other media slates.
  (tags: apple TV VoD tablet mediaslate)

{ 0 comments }

• A Crash Course in Django [Server Side Essentials]
  Kevin: A good quick three-page guide on how to get up to speed with Django, a web framework developed by developer journalists. For journalists in the US, Django is the web framework that Matt Waite used to build Politifact, which won a Pulitzer. As Matt said, to get stuff done, it's about 'demos not memos'.
  (tags: django tutorial webdevelopment python programming web tutorials)

{ 0 comments }