links for 2009-09-25

"The number of former servicemen in prison or on probation or parole is now more than double the total British deployment in Afghanistan, according to a new survey. An estimated 20,000 veterans are in the criminal justice system, with 8,500 behind bars, almost one in 10 of the prison population".

"Our series of posts about external uses of Times APIs continues. Today we’re highlighting the Congress Speaks application, which uses the Times Congress API."

Nice visualisation, and they alos avoided an obvious apples/oranges gotcha: "Given the difficulty of cross-media comparison, we left BBC online off the bar chart. It was difficult enough bringing radio and television onto the same graph. We’d welcome any suggestions to meaningfully integrate data about BBC online. The main statistic the BBC makes available is that its website averages 27.2m unique UK users a week".

"Of course having comments on the story would have allowed this discussion to take place in public, from the start, and provide readers of the article with some critical context, turning a single-source ‘He Said’ article into a ‘He Said-She Said’ piece at the very least."

"It may seem otherwise, but I am really not trying to single out one paper or one group. These papers as you can see on some of the mastheads, actually won multimedia awards two years in a row! But we have to start recognising poor use of multimedia, discussing it, and improving it. The longer it remains amateurish, the fewer eyeballs it gets and ultimately advertisers/subscribers cash". [via Sarah Hartley]

"Techdirt said that Allen printed an entire post from their site on her blog, thus infringing their copyright, and that she used mix-tapes of other people’s music early in her career which she distributed free. They said: 'The fact that she is trying to claim that such copying is bad while doing it herself suggests something of a double standard.'"

"Based on the experiences of the blogoneers, Wyld develops a set of lessons learned and a checklist of best practices for public managers interested in following in their footsteps. He also examines the broader social phenomenon of online social networks and how they affect not only government but also corporate interactions with citizens and customers".