Interactive examples

Tampa Bay Mug Shots utilizes Django for innovative database

St. Petersburg Times launched a brilliant interactive on Monday, utilizing booking information to create a database of the most recent arrests in their area. According to Shelby Sapusek, a media-focused twitterer, this package received 100,000 hits in the first three hours. Now that’s what I call a return on investment! Even better, they bypassed Flash and produced this package with Django, an open-source software known for it’s rich database capabilities under a tight deadline.

No wonder this package was such a hit … who doesn’t like looking at scary mug shots and seeing what their charges were? I’m not sure if the breakdown of height and eye color was relevant, but I did use the age, gender and weight categories out of curiosity sake. I even was able to search for people arrested who have my last name!

These producers did a great job breaking this interactive out to be a stand-alone package. It is clean, user friendly, and extremely entertaining. Most importantly, this type of story has a lot of great news value for users in all three counties. I also appreciated the news feed of latest crime stories to direct the user back to the news site.

The google ad blended in much more nicely with the package in comparison to the ugly banner ad at the top, but I think I just need to get over my fuss with ads ruining packages. (Give me some time on that one …)

Congrats on an innovative and inspirational package! I hope others take the time to learn Django to see how it could enhance future packages. I know that it is high up on my “To Do” list …

Other posts that might interest you:

• BBC News uses data wisely in “Mapping UK’s Teen Murder Toll”
• Wisconsin State Journal applauded for multimedia efforts
• Guantanamo Bay interactive presents data effectively

© 8 April 2009 Innovative Interactivity (II).