A Look at Data and Metadata

Data is fascinating. It can inform and tell stories, and it can be fun to share information. Mashable created an infographic to display how much information is generated every minute (it’s a lot). So it also doesn’t surprise me that many people say they’re addicted to the internet.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing. There are a lot of resources and projects online with really good information. As a writer, it could be useful, to give you information for your backstories and research about different areas and eras. With that in mind, here are some of those resources (some are free, some are paid).

Data Projects and Insights

GeoLytics: Demographic data and estimates

American Fact Finder: From the U.S. Census Bureau

CEIC: “Explore the most complete set of 5.5 million time series covering more than 200 economies, 20 industries and 18 macroeconomic sectors – compiled from 1,500 sources worldwide”

Founders Online: “George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison. Over 183,000 searchable documents, fully annotated, from the authoritative Founding Fathers Papers projects.”

Social Explorer: “Gain deep insights into any area of interest – down to a city block, with stunning visualizations and built-in data. Reinforce your decisions with reliable and accurate location data.”

Digital Public Library of America: “Discover 34,090,282 images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States”

Library Journal: “Library Journal has been inspired by the belief that libraries transform lives, at every stage of life.”

PW’s Map of New York Publishing (in case you were wondering)

“Google: Search hits, YouTube views are key predictors of a movie’s box office performance” on The Next Web: “Google has released a white paper that shows a proportional impact on a movie’s box office success based on the number of searches that it receives. Among the insights, the company highlights that users are more likely to watch a particular movie once they have thoroughly researched it. Additionally, studios and filmmakers are able to better decipher what users want based on the number and type of searches run.”

“Digital Science welcomes Gigantum and Ripeta to the family to help increase reproducibility in research” on Digital Science: “Digital Science, a technology company serving stakeholders across the research ecosystem, welcomes two US-based startups to the Digital Science family of companies: automated reproducibility assessment tool, Ripeta, and data science platform, Gigantum. Both companies are playing a key role in making scientific research reproducible and more transparent. Ripeta is developing a “credit report” for scientific publications to assess and help improve the transparency needed to effectively communicate research, while Gigantum is an emerging innovator in the area of data science platforms, supporting large-scale, data-oriented scientific research.”

“What will the world of work look like in 2035?” on RSA: “The task we at the RSA’s Future Work Centre set ourselves from our outset was to avoid such sensationalism – and in a spirit of sober inquiry, try and give some context to the great futuristic- sounding changes that are having an impact on workers right now. Automation, AI, platforms: what’s the real story here? What does it mean for workers of today and tomorrow?”

Edward Tufte: “Edward Tufte is a statistician and artist, and Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science at Yale University. He wrote, designed, and self-published 4 classic books on data visualization. The New York Timesdescribed ET as the “Leonardo da Vinci of data,” and Bloomberg as the “Galileo of graphics.” He is now completing a book Meaning, Space, Models, Data, Truth, and constructing a 234-acre tree farm and sculpture park in northwest Connecticut, which will show his artworks and remain open space in perpetuity. He founded Graphics Press, ET Modern Gallery/Studio, and Hogpen Hill Farms.”