Kevin: Some great examples of practical data and mapping applications for the 2010 Afghan elections. TileMill allows different sets of data to be overlaid on top of each such as fraud measurements over maps of election-related violence. Excellent examples of getting more information from mapping and datasets

Kevin: Scott Rosenberg has an excellent guide to how to dig in a website and find out who owns it. It's a great primer for web journalists in some basic investigative techniques to you know who's behind what you're reading online.

Kevin: Frederic Lardinois questions that numbers behind McDonald's claims that Foursquare helped it increase foot traffic by 33%. The numbers don't add up. Check-ins increased by 33% but most likely not foot traffic. Frankly, the check-ins might have started from a very low base, accounting for the double digit increase.

Kevin: Domino's UK says that its social media campaign using Facebook and Foursquare was key in driving profits 29% higher. On Foursquare, they have what they call a superfans programme. CEO Chris Moore said that the "web-based activities offer a dual benefit of driving pizza sales online and building customer loyalty."

Kevin: With a spend of only $1000, McDonald's in the US says that a Foursquare campaign was able to increase foot traffic to its stores by 33%. They didn't measure increased sales, only traffic, however, there are other examples that did measure sales, such as Domino's UK that attributed its social media and Foursquare campaign to a 29% increase in profits.

Kevin: Dean Starkman writes about the dramatic increase in content production in the US while at the same time the journalism industry has cut 15,000 jobs. He writes about the dramatic rise in output across newspapers, television and the web. More needs to be written about this. I think that Starkman has written an important piece. The question I have is whether companies will have the courage to take a look at their output and take measured steps to reverse the forward creep that is valuing quality over quantity. Speed is good but shouldn't be the only thing driving journalism in the digital era.

Kevin: An excellent look at the law concerning internet news aggregators and also looking at the different types of aggregators.

Kevin: Google is definitely starting to find some clever ways to drive HTML5 uptake. One way is by helping to develop interesting interactivity using the emerging web standard. In this case, they have worked with Arcade Fire to develop a video that pulls in your location and "mashes up the film with Google Maps and Street View". The video also allows you to write a postcard to "your younger self". This is driving new levels of real interactivity, and it will be a great time for storytellers.

Kevin: Mathew Ingram looks at investments in companies trying to build a business in the Twitter ecosystem. As Twitter itself seeks a business model, it's making it more difficult for other companies to build their businesses off of providing Twitter services. It's a fine line. Twitter wouldn't have experienced such growth if it hadn't been for the eco-system that developed around it, but Twitter also needs to find a sustainable business model or the heart of the eco-system will die.

Kevin: Sarah Perez writes at ReadWriteWeb: "According to ABI Research's Neil Strother, check-in apps may raise privacy concerns among some users today, but those issues can be overcome by offering consumers deals, discounts and rewards. The "value-exchange" of receiving these rewards will be high enough that consumers won't mind giving up privacy in order to take advantage of the benefits."

Kevin: The BBC uses Ushahidi's new cloud-based service, crowdmap, to map reports surrounding the London tube strike in September 2010. It should have had a filter not just as to what form of transportation but also whether the report was of a problem or of alternative routes to avoid congestion or suspended service.

Kevin: This looks very handy for data journalism. Paste in CSV or tab-delimited data into a form, and it will output the data in common web data formats such as JSON, XML, Actionscript or Ruby.

Kevin: Ellie Behling at eMedia Vitals writes: "Despite slow adoption rates, media brands should pay attention to location-based services. Localized information is probably the next frontier for information; it's just catching on slowly. As the technology evolves and smartphones become more popular, adoption will increase."

The entrance of Facebook, with its 500 million users, could certainly quicken the pace of adoption.

Kevin: The Associated Press has signed a new agreement with Google. Instead of a vendor, Google and Associated Press are now describing the relationship as an extended partnership.

Kevin: In July, Matt Brian of The Next Web reports about recent successes enjoyed by location-based network Foursquare: "Just days after securing $20 million series B round of capital, the location service has announced another big milestone – 1 million check-ins in one day."

Kevin: A look at the competition heating up in the location space with the launch of Facebook Places. "While some of you might think this trend marks the moment when social media jumped the shark, major media outlets and other businesses are looking to cash in on the impulse people have to overshare." I spotted this, and I think that news organisations need to pay attention to this. Geolocation has potential for news organizations, too, as demonstrated earlier this year after the foiled Times Square attack. In the days that followed, there was more than one false alarm, and the Wall Street Journal used a Times Square "check in" on Foursquare to alert others in the area that there was an evacuation.

Editors can also use geolocation to help confirm eyewitness tips from the scenes of news events. That doesn't mean there won't be hoaxes or that the systems can't be fooled, but it's a step up from the e-mails and SMS tips we have now."

Kevin: Jonathan Stray of the Nieman Journalism Lab interviews my friend and former colleague Simon Rogers, the editor of The Guardian's Datablog, on the data journalism efforts at the newspaper. As Jonathan points out, most of the tools that The Guardian uses are free. Mostly free. The Guardian uses Google Docs and Google mail for much of office applications, but, of course, to use those at a business, there is a fee. However, it's less than traditional office applications. However, they also IBM's Many Eyes and time visualisation tool Timetric, both, which are free.

Kevin: Most location-based services in 2010 focus on retail and restaurants, but Zillow is one of a several location applications the focuses on real estate. They have iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Mobile apps. Their CEO says that the app generates much better leads for real estate agents because people are actively out looking at homes. "Zillow’s competitors, such as Redfin, ZipRealty, Century 21, Realtor.com, have apps, as well."

Kevin: MG Siegler reports: "Future Checkin is an app that allows you to check-in to your favorite Foursquare venues automatically when you’re near them. You don’t have to do a thing besides simply have your phone on you and this app will check you in while running in the background with iOS 4."

Kevin: Shopkick uses the API of location-based network Foursquare to reward you for walking into a retail store in the US. The app knows when you walk into the store and gives you a reward, presumably a special offer of some sort. They also have a virtual currency called "kickbucks". They say the check-in method can't be faked. In the future, their app will know not only when you walk into a store but also where you are in the store. I suppose this would be of interest to the store because if the phone was sensitive enough it might know not only that you're in the store but also what department you were in. I think to achieve that they'll have to use Skyhook using hotspots because the GPS signal wouldn't be available in the store, but it's possible.

Kevin: Travel guide publisher Lonely Planet has released an augmented reality search to deliver what they call "relevant ubiquity" (shouldn't that be ubiquitous relevance?) They are using technology from the AR company behind Wikitude. The is Lonely Planet's first app for mobile phones running Google's Android OS. The company already has free and paid apps for the iPhone and saw a 500% increase in sales from a promotion linked to the 2010 volcanic eruption in Iceland.

Kevin: An interesting development for anyone interested in 'transmedia' and stories. With the rise of social media, there has been a focus on interactivity, which I really enjoy. However, I think we pressed pause on story innovation during this time. The rise of social media and the dot.com crash before it, led to some stagnation in thinking about how we tell stories. Fortunately, I think with data visualisations and the mass appeal of the digital content, we're seeing a revival of exploration. This is a project to watch in that vein

Kevin: Carrington Malon of Spot On PR writes: "Facebook has become a force to be reckoned with in the Middle East and North Africa and the platform can now claim 15 million users as of May 2010. Whilst Facebook saw strong early growth in 2008/2009 from English and French speaking users across the region, Facebook’s decision to add an Arabic interface in March 2009 has opened up access to a whole new demographic of Internet users and added 3.5 million Arabic users over the past year."

Kevin: An interesting post by Alastair Leithead about coverage of the protests in Thailand. Alastair says that the international media were pilloried by not only Thais but ex-pats for their coverage of the protests in Bangkok. He said that some of the criticism was particularly harsh on Twitter. He expressed frustration at having to explain a complex story not only on television but also in 140-characters on Twitter. He asked some of his critics on Twitter how to succinctly explain the crisis and actually got some useful insights. An example example of how engagement can help diffuse criticism.

Kevin: An interesting post by We Media author Dan Gillmor on Salon talking about his upcoming book Mediactive. The goal of the book is to persuade people to become much more active users of media instead of simply being passive consumers. As he says, part of this is about improved media literacy. However, as digital technology allows more people to become creators of media, he also asks questions about who is a journalist in this new age and whether or how such protections afforded in the past only to professional journalists.

Kevin: An interesting view that the first-person decentralised expert (in this case venture capitalist Fred Wilson) has replaced the third-person centralised expert quoted by traditional media. It's worth a read. The one issue with decentralisation is that it requires more effort from the person seeking information. Decentralisation does not work passive audiences. The post is specifically talking about Fred Wilson in the context of Inc magazine. It might make more sense that niche content, especially business content, has a more active audience than for general news.

Kevin: A way to automatically generate calls to US National Public Radio's API. It makes API calls easy.