MSNBC.com unveiled a cool feature yesterday that shows the power of databases and maps as a new form of journalism. Integrating publicly available data about bridge safety with some Microsoft maps, the Bridge Tracker allows a user to enter a start and destination and "check out" all the bridges that will be crossed. I'm guessing this project was borne in the wake of the Minneapolis bridge disaster of last summer and it's a very cool display for data.

Another site that launched last week that expands the idea to crime, building permits, liquor licenses and more is called Everyblock. It's available in San Francisco, Chicago and New York and combines incredible amounts of data into sortable views and maps.

My industry goes ga-ga over these projects because they are great tools for journalists. But I wonder how interesting "regular" readers will find them. Would you want to know about all the liquor license applications and building permits that were recently filed in your neighborhood? And how much do you care about the safety of the bridges you drive over? As one co-worker remarked, "Does it give you an alternate route" if you don't like the main one? (If you're driving from Tacoma to Seattle, there is no alternate route. But that's a different issue altogether.)

If you have pictures of snowmen or sledding, we invite you to post them to our reader-submitted photo gallery. OK, so there wasn't that much snow. But apparently there was enough to make a Wii!

View the winter gallery | Post your photo

Several people of have sent me emails the past couple weeks alerting me to the appearance of a new, online-only "newspaper" that has launched at www.tacomasun.com.

Morgan Alexander, Andrew Austin and Erik Bjornson are listed as the editors of the publication. Andrew began blogging for us about transit issues last year, while Erik "pens" the Tacoma Urbanist blog, which I wrote about last month.

It's curious to note that this upstart publication aims to be a "newspaper" and not something that sounds more digital. Working for a legacy print newspaper, I hear more and more from people in our company who are trying to go the other way, to stop talking about "paper" and focus on "news."

The Tacoma Sun appears to focus on issues and advocacy as much as, if not more than, news. It's a model that resembles the newspapers published in the earlier part of the 20th century (when every town and city had numerous newspapers).

The purpose of the Tacoma Sun will be to attempt to explore the methods in which Tacoma can continue to rebuild the physical and social structures to place the city on a path toward reaching its potential.

How does it differ from a blog, especially considering the site is built on blog software? I'm not sure, and I'm not sure that it matters. It's part of the evolution of news and information in the digital age. Blog? Newspaper? Newspaper blog? The label is less important than the information, the interactivity and the community that forms around it.

Welcome to the neighborhood, Tacoma Sun.

Liveblogging is emerging as a powerful Journalism 2.0 technique to cover breaking news, court trials and other developing events. While it appears at first blush to be AP bulletins for the digital age, it is the style and format that technology bloggers have been using for years to cover conferences and speeches that presents the best method of this technique.

Take, for example, Tuesday's Macworld keynote speech by Steve Jobs of Apple. Like thousands of other geeks who can't be at the Moscone Center for the address, I enjoy following the proceedings with one of the many bloggers in attendance. Part way through the presentation, I received an email from a friend with a link to the New York Times blog that was attempting to do the same thing. (The email was about a particularly snarky remark the NYT blogger made in the blog.)

Which led me to wonder how one of the most important news organizations in the world was faring in trying to cover this grand business news event when compared to one of the most important tech news organizations in the world, Techcrunch.

=> Read more!

Jennifer finished a year-long commitment to post one positive thing every day about Tacoma for an entire year (actually 361 days). It started in the wake of the shooting at Foss High School last year, when the comments on many web sites referred to Tacoma's less-than-desirable reputation. Jen decided to do something about it. And, now in retrospect, it's quite an accomplishment.

Now, Jen's blog and corresponding web site (tacomamama.com) is a robust local guide to great things in the Grit City - especially if you have kids. When I talked with Jen a few weeks ago, it was obvious that the commitment was taking its toll on her. I'm sure she's relieved that it's over.

Now that it's complete, I asked Jen (via email) if it was as difficult as I think it would be to make that kind of blogging commitment.

There were definitely times, especially during the Summer when I had six months behind me and six months ahead when I thought it was an insane idea, but I'm very glad that I did it. I've been able to take all that work and index it and turn it into a sort of city guide, and I've developed the habit of writing every day. Taking the time to actively think about one positive thing every day, on any subject, begins to change your way of thinking about the world. It's been wonderful to share my vision of Tacoma with other people, and discover other people who see it the same way. (There are some people around here who make me look like a pessimist!)

I also asked her if, now that it's over, she's glad she did it.

We had so much fun this summer exploring just about every playground in every corner of Tacoma, and learning that some of the greatest neighborhoods have some of the worst reputations. I can't wait until the weather improves so we can get back to the parks. My kids have had a great year. I think they'll always be people who aren't afraid to go out and do, and that makes me very happy.

Things I wouldn't do again? Try to please anyone else. When I wrote about the things that I loved (like food for example) readers followed, plus I get to do what I like!

There are also a few places I'd definitely not take kids to again. We had some "Bad Days in Tacoma," but usually they had more to do with testing our own limits than anything external. The only other negative was the cost. It's not cheap to do that much stuff without an expense account. Fun, but not cheap. I look at it this way, though: if it's stressful for us to come up with the money to do something, other families are probably in the same boat. I always have to look at everything in relation to how much it's worth, and that's an element that is missing from a lot of lifestyle features in traditional media. It's also something that most parents (actually most people) have to think about every day.

Nice work, Jen. You deserve a day off!

You really owe it to yourself to spend three minutes with Perk Central owner Robert Jones in the YouTube video that our Lights & Sirens blog wrote up yesterday.

Jones should be commended for his creative approach to pursuing the would-be burglar. It's the Web 2.0 way to catch a thief. He edited security camera footage, then recorded a humorous voiceover mocking the perpetrator as Captain Jack Sparrow, then posted it on YouTube for all the world to see.

The newspaper published the blog item this morning and the Captain Jack Burglar turned himself in a few hours later.

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire talks to reporters, editors, and journalism executives about issues that lawmakers will face in the upcoming legislative session on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

There are some influential political blogs in Washington state - most notably Sound Politics and Horse's Ass - but only us goold ol' mainstream media types were invited to the Associated Press Legislative Preview Day in Olympia on Tuesday.

Some 50 editors, reporters, columnists and photographers crammed into Hearing Room 1 in the John A. Cherberg Building this morning to hear about the focus of the upcoming legislative session (which begins Monday). They came from their newspapers, radio stations and TV operations to ask questions of a handful of state senators and representatives and hear their talking points. They also heard from Gov. Christine Gregoire and listened to the Associated Press describe how they plan to cover the session.

I wondered why bloggers didn't get inside the velvet rope? Apparently no one asked.

I talked to Rachel La Corte, the AP state bureau reporter who organized the event, and she said that it's customary to invite AP member newspapers and broadcast outlets. She said that no one else - political bloggers, for example - asked to attend. (She also said she didn't know what AP would do if they did ask.)

The News Tribune followed the Seattle Times and Tri-City Herald in launching a political blog for this session, so the flow of information directly from the legislative session will increase. And we've assigned one of our best bloggers - Grit City's Niki Sullivan - to the beat to see how much we can get out of it.

But it would be interesting to see how much differently these "sneak preview" sessions would feel if there were independent - and blatantly biased - political bloggers in attendance, live-blogging the sessions and asking questions. I'm not sure it would be better, but it certainly would be interesting.

The Cincinnati Post published its last print edition on New Year's Eve after 126 years of continuous coverage of Cincinnati and northern Kentucky. On Jan. 1, the Scripps-owned operation unveiled kypost.com, an online-only news site covering northern Kentucky.

That same day, the online-only publication scooped the winner in Cincinnati's newspaper war, the Enquirer, with news of that city's first murder in 2008. It appears that some synergy from the local Scripps-owned TV news outfit assisted in this story, as it will likely do so in the future.

This is a fate, of course, that many observers are predicting for printed newspapers. It's also one that we in the Puget Sound thought we might see if the Seattle Times and P-I weren't able to settle their dispute. It will be interesting to watch the development of kypost.com in 2008 to see how it fares. I have no doubt the site will be able to compete with the still-in-print Enquirer for news, content and online audience. The challenge will be on the revenue side. Hopefully there will be lessons learned by kypost.com that other news companies will be able to apply to their operations.