New York Times: How Twitter Users Balanced the Budget
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How users of the New York Times interactive graphic on balancing the budget who reported their choices on Twitter suggested spending cuts and tax increases. Very clever.
Category Archives: games
10,000 Words: How they did it: The New York Times’ budget interactive
"During the design process ... [graphics editor Kevin Quealy] said he had to strike a balance between the interactive being too simple (and boring) and being too complex (and game-like, for something that’s a serious topic). ... To facilitate the sharing of a user’s results, a variable called “choices” is appended to the URL. This variable tells the Javascript which tax cuts and spending increases to display. A user then has the option to post the results to Twitter, by interacting with the service’s Tweet Button, which Quealy noted is partially why the interactive is so popular on Twitter."
New York Times: O.K., You Fix the Budget
"The New York Times has conducted its own analysis of the federal budget, but with a different final product. Rather than making recommendations, we are laying out a menu of major options, so that readers can come up with their own plan. We have received help along the way from the deficit panel, from Congressional and White House aides and from liberal, conservative and centrist budget analysts. The deficit puzzle on The Times’s Web site is the result. The ultimate goal is to help you judge the deficit proposals that are now emerging ..."
Nieman Journalism Lab: Play Paywall!, the new web game sweeping the newspaper industry
Genius way to illustrate the conundrum facing every news executive thinking of raising a subscription barrier: "Paywall!, our revenue game ... allows you to explore the situation at the [New York] Times or at any other news site. ..."
Mashable: 10 News Media Content Trends to Watch in 2010
"A look at several trends in content distribution and presentation that we will likely see more of in 2010. ... 1. Living Stories ... 2. Real-Time News Streams ... 3. Blogozines ... 4. Distributed Social News ... 5. News Goes Mobile ... 6. The Year of Geo-Location ... 7. Story-Streaming ... 8. Social TV Online ... 9. Marketers as Producers ... 10. Social News Gaming."
Fast Company: Can a Game Be Journalism? Play ‘Six Days In Fallujah’ to Find Out
"For their gut wrenching simulation of that infamously bloody battle, the developers at Atomic Games drew on interviews with over three dozen soldiers who fought there."
Charlie Beckett: Beeb Camp III: Twitter is only 1% but it’s massive (and Gaming matters, too)
"[Jem Stone] said something along the lines of how only 1% of listeners have even heard of Twitter, let along used it. And he said that SMS is still vastly more popular as a way of interacting with BBC Radio. But it doesn’t matter because it is creative. Indeed, it may be that Twitter works better because it is a series of interconnected small networks with short messages."
Times Online: Electronic Arts to give away video games online
"Electronic Arts, the computer game publisher, has signalled its intent to embrace new, internet-based business models, announcing a version of its popular Battlefield title that will be distributed free online."