Externally Visualizing TwitterVoteReport.com

You might have seen a previous post about the VoteReport for Android I developed. This was done as part of the twittervotereport.com effort, which is aiming to use a variety of communication tools (sms, iphones, g1’s, plain old phone lines) along with open standards and mashup technologies to create an effective tool for tracking problems (and successes!) at the polls on November 4th.

One of the exciting aspects of this project is that the primary visionaries, architects and developers committed early on to opening up the data they are collecting, providing a variety of feeds to access the incoming reports:

Here are the various ways that you can access the data collected by Twitter Vote Report, as detailed by our Andrew Turner:

* OpenSearch – http://votereport.us/opensearch.xml
This is the OpenSearch description document that outlines all of the feeds and various filters that you can use when getting to the data.
* KML – http://votereport.us/reports.kml
Getting the reports.kml will give a Network Link – this is useful for GoogleEarth and other KML clients to automatically update every 60 seconds with new reports.
* GeoRSS-Atom – http://votereport.us/reports.atom
Just want to subscribe to the feed in your RSS reader, this feed is useful for getting updates.
* GeoJSON – http://votereport.us/reports.json
JSON is super nice for doing client-side mashups and visualization. This is what the Vote Report Map itself is using. It includes a lot of information for each report, including reporter, icon, location

I haven’t been involved in the backend development of the TVR system because a) I couldn’t fully commit to the herculean effort they’ve made and b) much of it is implemented in Ruby on Rails, a platform which I am not that familiar with. However, I had a few hours today and decided to become a consumer of the data feeds (specifically GeoJSON) they have provided to implement a service using Java/JSP. My aim was to provide an alternate system for browsing the reports and visualizing them, as well, and perhaps just act as a backup repository.

Thus, I’ve created TVR on OpenIdeals – the same data as what you’ll get on the main twittervotereport site, but with some different tools for looking through it and for sharing it on your blog.

TwitterVoteReport on OpenIdeals

I also wanted to provide some other options for creating widgets out of the data. Here’s an example of a dynamically updating widget you can create that displays the last 25 reports from Virginia:

Here’s a view of anyone having a bad experience at the pools:

That’s about it. Check out the site and please tomorrow make sure you 1) VOTE and 2) report how your vote went using the TVR Reporting Tools.

"the bird and the bee" in Second Life

Cruxy Consulting partnered with EMI / Blue Note Records to launch the new release of the bird and the bee, a Los Angeles-based band. Cruxy created a listening lounge for holding events for fans. The lounge also acted a venue for promoting and distributing the band’s music within Second Life, through the Cruxy Player. As part of the project, Cruxy hosted a listening party, where fans were invited to listen, socialize, dance, and otherwise hang out.

Listening Party Photos

Promotional Trailer Video

Learn more at http://cruxy.com/tbatb

The Long Blondes in Second Life

The 3-D virtual world of Second Life just got a lot more stylish and rockin’. The international phenomenon has teamed up with Beggars Group and Rough Trade Records to create a virtual listening party for the critically acclaimed debut, Someone To Drive You Home, of Sheffield, England’s The Long Blondes.

But this isn’t your average listening party. Cruxy Consulting and Second Life have built a virtual drive-in for their members to listen to the album called the “Lost Highway” Lounge. The lounge features an interactive media player, a large movie theatre featuring The Long Blondes videos, virtual apparel giveaways, and links to purchase their music. There are even portable music players available for visitors to take with them once they leave the lounge.

Learn more at http://cruxy.com/thelongblondes

For more information, here are some helpful links.
http://cruxy.com/features/thelongblondes/sl/

Teaser video for the Lost Highway Lounge:
http://cruxy.com/features/thelongblondes/sl/video.html

The Long Blondes’ album, Someone To Drive You Home, was released in the UK last November and in the US on June 5th on Beggars Group via an exlusive agreement with Rough Trade. It’s since gained widespread critical acclaim. The band is currently in the middle of a successful US tour, including a sold out show at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom.

“Most so-called “cinematic” records earn that distinction due to some quirk of reverb or their use of space, but the Long Blondes only have modern England’s typically confined, 17-year-old-from-Doncaster guitar-dudish sound. Instead, it’s the songs themselves, their narratives and their characters that speak to the band’s widescreen ambitions.” Pitchfork 8.2

“Filled with more hits than Doherty’s arm, this record flashed with more deliciously faded glamour than a crumbling Cuban city … this is a record – and a band – which many people will fall in love with …” NME

“Sheffield quintet impress with a rough diamond of a debut’

Mojo 4 of 4 star review

“Someone to Drive You Home was that peculiar paradox: an instant slow-burner. I knew immediately that this was a record which would grow and grow … ” The Independent

“On their excellent full-length debut…the Blondes spolit the difference between those two Britpop biggies [Pulp and Arctic Monkeys], holding forth on fame, sex and movies over slashing disco-flecked guitar pop.” Time Out NY

“If my hunch is right …The Long Blondes are en route to becoming one of the most important British bands of our time” The Independent

“… An indie ace pop record” Time Out London

www.thelongblondes.co.uk

www.myspace.com/thelongblondes

Virtual Beauty through MiniLuxe

Cruxy Consulting developed a virtual presence for MiniLuxe, an innovative new entrant into the salon business. The goal of the project was to recreate the experience of their real-world shop, providing users a way to preview the experience and service of MiniLuxe through their avatars.

MiniLuxe is the nail and beauty lounge that caters to you and what is going on in your life at the moment. We believe that “me time” is critical to a balanced life. You never need an excuse to take care of you. Whether you are looking to pamper your paws with one of our sublime mani/pedi services, browse our shelves filled with the “best of” beauty products, splurge on a little gift for yourself or your pal, MiniLuxe brings out the beauty in life and the beauty in you.

Learn more about MiniLuxe at http://miniluxe.com