[okfn-discuss] Poderopedia launches public beta to promote transparency and open information in Chile

[Miguel Paz]

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
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