Kevin: How to use Google Fusion Tables (Google Spreadsheets for large files) to update a map from a large spreadsheet.

Kevin: My takeawy from this post is Iris Chyi's comments. She finds "Her research has consistently found that even while online news use continues growing, its preference lags behind that of traditional media." And she adds: "More research, as opposed to guesswork or wishful thinking, on the perception of news products is essential."

Kevin: paidContent panel discussing paywalls with Jacob Weisberg of Slate, Politico co-founder and Editor-in-Chief John Harris, Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau and Bloomberg Chief Content Officer Norm Pearlstine. Paywalls are a practial issue not an ideological one. Bloomberg's Perlstine said: "“It’s supply and demand. If you can suspend those laws, you might as well try. But our own experience is that you can charge a lot of money from an audience that has a special need for your content. The report on where all the best football players are going to college is important to some people. But most general news is not sufficiently distinct. There are some smart people who are betting on it. It seems to me more out of desperation than from an actual business plan.”

Kevin: Mark Glaser writes: "In the view of some traditional media execs, Google is a digital vampire or a parasite or tech tapeworm using someone else's content to profit. As that rhetoric heated up in the past year, Google has responded not with equal amounts of invective but with entreaties to help publishers." It's the text that accompanies and in-depth interview with Google's Krishna Bharat and Josh Coehn about Google News. I agree with Mark's assessment in terms of response to some pretty rough punches thrown their way by newspapers. Google is doing well so can afford to turn the other cheek. It's a good interview and well worth watching.

Kevin: The Washington Post reports: "The world's largest Internet search company and the world's most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity." How Google and the NSA might cooperate isn't clear. One thing I would say from this piece and others is that Google's threat to quit China has brought attention to cyber-attacks originating from China (whether the Chinese government is involved is difficult to prove but implied by subtle details in Google's announcement).

Kevin: A great head-to-head comparison of Data.gov and the recently launched Data.gov.uk (a launch that I covered for the Guardian). The verdict: "While Data.gov.uk was just recently launched publicly, it has many advantages over Data.gov. It's easier to use and geared towards developers, who, let's face it, are the only ones who are going to do more with the data than open it up in Excel. Data.gov has some catching up to do. Both still have a long way to go. Both are good steps in the right direction."