tecznotes

La Vanguardia has mentioned In The News in an article about visual representations of the news (en/es), along with Newsmap and News Is Free:

It is perhaps true that graphical representation of the news does not in itself bring much of value. It is like visually creating the front page of a paper or the headlines of a news bulletin, only in this case using thousands of sources simultaneously. The value of the graphics is that they help to explain things a little better.

I had not seen News Is Free before. It feels informationally richer and visually weaker than News Map; its extensive configurability is both a liability and an asset. As a nerd, I appreciate the ability to custom-fit the data I'm seeing to my own aesthetic tastes, but I feel as though the really important configurability is still missing. It's one thing to allow me choose whether size == age or color == position, but another to provide controls to filter by the content of the news iteself. News Map does this excellently, letting me choose to look at Sports or Health new, grouped by country.