[ddj] Poderopedia launches public beta to promote transparency and open information in Chile

Thu Dec 13 17:13:28 UTC 2012

Hi everybody!

Poderopedia (http://www.poderopedia.org) launched this wednesday
12/12/2012 at 12:12 and that`s right: The world did not end when we
did it. So please come in, check out the menu, and grab a bite of our
editorial and crowdsourced data journalism website that uses public
data, semantic web technology, and network visualizations to map who's
who in business and politics in Chile.

We are pleased to invite you to Poderopedia, a project backed by
Knight Foundation through its News Challenge 2011
(http://www.knightfoundation.org/grants/20110953/). We believe that
Poderopedia will save reporters time
(http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2011/08/poderopedia-keeps-track-of-chiles-most-powerful-and-influential230.html)
in their reporting and will help citizens understand the relationships
between people, companies and organizations that influence our daily
lives.

We know our 3,000 pre-registered users have been waiting several
months, and therefore we want to thank them and you for your patience
and support through this invitation to browse our site and review the
profiles of individuals, businesses and most influential organizations
in our country.

Of course, **the site is still in beta**, which means it is a "work in
progress" and as such, surely you may find things are not going to be
100%, as well as areas we should fix or improve and that still need to
be completed. These are all things that we intend to do on a daily
basis.

Please report any bugs you may find, tell us about what you like and
dislike, and share your ideas using http://poderopedia.uservoice.com

If you want more background information, PBS Idea Lab featured a long
and detailed post
(http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2012/12/poderopedia-uses-public-data-to-take-on-powerful-interests-in-chile327.html)
last week where we explain our goals and roadmap since we started
building Poderopedia.

That said, in Poderopedia you can:

→ Access profiles of politicians, businessmen, institutions and companies
→ Check visualizations of maps of relationships (that we will improve
week by week)
→ Discover relevant information quickly and easily with our search
engine and directories
→ See documents related to an entity (thanks
"DocumentCloud":http://www.documentcloud.org/!)
→ Register to collaborate and get your own user page that will include
future notifications and more collaboration features
→ Provide data anonymously, suggest new profiles and connections,
report errors and inappropriate content (hey, no one is infallible and
we care about the privacy of individuals)

We remind you that **this is the beta version of Poderopedia**. Your
comments and suggestions are very important to us. So far, the
reactions have been nothing but
"impressive":http://topsy.com/s?q=poderopedia and
"generous":http://poderopedia.icerocket.com/ by our early adopters.
Come on in and "propose":http://poderopedia.uservoice.com your ideas
too.

If you're interested in creating a chapter of Poderopedia in your
country, or you want to become an editor/contributor, want to donate
your time, knowledge -- or even your money :) -- to promote
transparency and keep opening up unknown relations of the most
influential or have a fantastic idea to contribute, by all means write
to us at team at poderopedia.com.

We're eager to see you use Poderopedia and make it your own,

**Welcome!**

Miguel Paz @miguelpaz
Poderopedia.org @poderopedia