Last week we told you about easel.ly for creating beautiful infographics in your browser, but we had a few gripes — it didn’t let you manipulate data or change color schemes, two things that are vital to custom infographics. Infogr.am, also a tool in beta,  lets you do both of those things and more —  perfect for a journalist, blogger or social media editor on a deadline.

The tool is dead simple, and with preset fonts, colors and templates, it’s hard to make something that doesn’t look great. See my quick example below (which, by the way, doesn’t display real data on Twitter followers).

Read more

Create a social media strategy and learn from the biggest names in social media in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Jen Brown (TODAY.com), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

The Associated Press debuted its own custom zoomable world map today, which you can see on their first project with it — a world map that locates all active nuclear sites in the U.S., pictured below.

Michelle Minkoff, Interactive Producer for the Associated Press, told me this about the map via email:

“We are using our own worldwide HTML zoomable map for the first time today. AP Interactive has used other mapping systems in the past. We’ve had other worldwide maps and other zoomable maps in Flash. We also did two experiments with HTML zoom mapping in late 2011, but those were limited to the United States.

But this new system provides a more thorough base for some of the mapping projects that will come out of AP Interactive, and be distributed to customers.  That being said, it’s just the beginning, and we look forward to growing our capabilities.”

The tools and libraries they used to build the map:

• TileMill – to create the mapping tiles
• Leaflet - for javascript beauty

You can read Michelle’s full post about the project on her blog.

It’s mid-May, which means it’s about time for journalism schools to send their army of relatively inexperienced student journalists and recent graduates out into the professional world for a test run. Yep, in a few weeks if not already, young, impressionable cub journalists will turn up in newsrooms eager to do everything.

If you’re among the intern ranks this year, here’s your short and simple to-do list for this summer gig.
Read more

When it comes to blogging platform Tumblr, Newsweek has always led the pack. The news magazine is at it again — this time posting six alternative, although ultimately rejected, versions of its mildly controversial “First Gay President” cover on its Tumblr.

The picture that made the cut for the May 21 issue shows President Barack Obama with a rainbow-hued halo above his head (shown to the right). On the bottom left are printed the words “The First Gay President.”

In the Tumblr post, Brian Ries, Newsweek‘s current social media editor, writes, “Ah, our favorite nwktumblr feature is back: the also-rans! These are the alternate versions of our ’First Gay President’ Newsweek cover that were left on the cutting room floor.”

See all six rejected covers after the jump.

Read more

Regional magazines sometimes feel like an exclusive club that you can’t get into unless you’re a local. But for the Chicago edition of Time Out, writers from beyond the Windy City are welcome to send in their stories, including music and concert reviews for its TOC website.

At over 3 million page views a month, the site isn’t a bad place for a beginner or a journalist passionate about his or her craft — not the money. And photo galleries are also a big deal on TimeOutChicago.com, so editor-in-chief Frank Sennett encourages budding photographers to look to the website to build up some credits.

Get editor contacts and advice on pitching features in How To Pitch: Time Out Chicago.

This article is one of several mediabistro.com features exclusively available to AvantGuild subscribers. If you’re not a member yet, you can register for as little as $55 a year and get access to these articles, discounts on seminars and workshops, and more.