Outstanding Data Mashup

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  Sponsored by:

  New Zealand Post

"Vinyl Lionel" by Gareth Bradley

http://www.vinyl-lionel.co.nz/

Description

New Zealand On Air's cultural investment is made transparent with this clever, quirky app. You can explore the data, answer questions, and get a sense for the diversity of and return on NZOA's grants. Award sponsored by New Zealand Post

The $4000 outstanding award goes to the awesome mashup that demonstrates the value of open NZ data or content, is well designed, and is also insanely great.

Selected Judges' Comments:

"Lovely, polished application that provides insights for users which are not available elsewhere. The creators have taken data from an official source, gathered some of their own and mashed everything together into something that's useful for an entire sector. This application provides data that would otherwise be extremely time-consuming to gather and report on in an easy way."

" Information is displayed well and it's easy to get specific information as well as browse around the site. The timeline was particularly impressive, with nice dataviz and lots of good context."

Clear illustration of big recent growth for exposure of NZ music, online. Thought provoking differences in YouTube views vs. Facebook likes - suggesting more research on how NZ bands could optimise their presence/media for different social media."

Gareth's description of the entry:

NZ On Air has been funding NZ music for 20 years now – what good fellers. How is that investment faring in these digital days? On Youtube? On Facebook? Historically, funding was based on its radio play potential. More recently, the rules have been updated to factor in their online presence – their prowess at social media and pitching music videos online. This was also alongside a drive to foster talent that better fills global musical niches with unique artist, partly as a result of public backlash that the previous funding model only served a ‘middle of the road’ market. NZ On Air have had their funding decision results publicly available online for a few years now. Between 1991 and 2011, 881 artists have been given ~3,200 grants of $5k - $50k each. This entry provides a comprehensive and easy overview of that online footprint - Tracing how the world has taken to NZ’s music video legacy through Youtube, and who’s ‘engaging their audience’ on Facebook and racking up the big ‘like’ counts. It’s equally a tool to explore the landscape and history of music funded by NZ On Air, a measurement of return on investment of taxpayer money, and one hell of a case study into watching the world figure out how to build a fan base through these new digital mediums. Prior to this, all discussions on online success seemed anecdotal – people mentioning a few stats they were aware of, never having the full picture available. And that’s part of the fun – it’s such a new terrain artists and marketers to tread. Opinion on arts funding will always be present, and at times it’s difficult to show the success stories and find role models. Maybe this will change that. Hopefully this entry entertains, and starts a few conversations. Enjoy.

Sources

• "NZ On Air Music Funding Decisions (1991 - 2011)" http://kiwihits.co.nz/funding/results Open licence - Confirmed by Brendan Smyth (NZ Music Manager - NZ On Air) -
• "Youtube API" - http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/overview.html - Terms and Condidtions - http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/terms.html -
• "Facebook API" - https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/ Facebook Platform Policies - https://developers.facebook.com/policy/