Web Directions Speakers in profile – Adrian Holovaty
I’m not quite sure when I first heard of Adrian Holovaty, but I’d long heard of Chicago Crime, one of the very first “mashups”, which Adrian developed. With that kind of achievement, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Adrian was a computer scientist, but in fact, his background is in journalism. Until very recently, Adrian has been Editor for Editorial innovations at the Washington Post, putting together some innovative applications like Campaign Tracker, Mixed Messages and the powerful and moving Faces of the Fallen.
I’d go so far as to say Adrian is at the forefront of the reinvention of mainstream news. As a professional journalist, he is very aware of what large news organisations can do that individual bloggers, no matter how talented, and passionate can’t (that’s not to criticise blogging but to put blogging into context as part of the news media), and yet as a brilliant programmer (a founding developer of the Django framework) he also sees what software can enable with the enormous amount of information news organisations gather.
These lessons don’t just apply to news organisations, they are valuable to any individual or organisation which publishes data online, which is why we are so excited (really, it’s an over used term, but we are genuinely excited) to have Adrian coming to speak at Web Directions.
I said Adrian was until recently at the Washington post. Recently, Adrian received a $1.1 million grant as part of the Knight News Challenge, which will go to founding EveryBlock that in Adrian’s words focuses on making local news and information useful
EveryBlock will be a hyperlocal Web site that aggregates an unprecedented depth and breadth of public records, mainstream news sources, photographs, blogs and user-contributed information.
It really is a privilege to have someone as innovative, and fascinating, frankly as revolutionary as Adrian speaking at Web Directions. The fact that he is a fabulously entertaining speaker and really nice guy makes it all the better.
If you develop or design for the web, or if you want to see where one of the most innovative thinkers about the web sees it going, Adrian is not to be missed
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