Creating and publishing interactive charts no longer requires expensive software.

Forget about building simple line graphs. Using Chartle.net you can create any number of visual charts to display your data online.

Here are a few examples of the types of charts you can make using Chartle.net:

Using Chartle.net does not require registration and is free.

Every chart you build can be published, shared and embedded on your website or blog.

Data for your chart can be entered manually or inputted using an excel spreadsheet via the ‘import’ feature.

You can also adjust the size of the chart you create to fit your site.

Before you publish your Chartle you’ll be asked to give it a

? Title

? Author

? Description

Click here to view an example of this interactive Chartle.net chart.

Need to make a modification to your chart? You can create a new chart using the data stored in a currently published chart.

Hilary Fosdal is the Interactive Content Manager for Barrington Broadcasting Group. She blogs at hilaryfosdal.com and tweets @hilaryfosdal.

UPDATE: (2/22/10) The company Page.ly offers a one-stop shop for self-hosting blog set-up. Leave the technical guesswork to them. Service is about $15 a month. They’ll get you blogging and will install all the SEO, plug-in, meta-tagging, social bookmarking gadgets for you.

UPDATE: (2/22/10) I came across this article, which has the steps for moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org.

You don’t have to be a coding guru or Silicon Valley veteran to start blogging with some bells and whistles.

I started from scratch last year and my goals were simply to have a blog or site where I could post text, embed links, upload multimedia, and while I was at it, add some of those social media and bookmarking buttons to easily share my pages.

I don’t know much about metatagging or SEO, have no idea what FTP sites have to do with anything, and CSS is beyond me.

This blog post is about my recent experience with WordPress.com and GoDaddy — no special treatment for those companies, they are not paying me or anything, it’s just what I use and know. Do a Google search for “domain registration” and “web hosting” for other companies to work with. Typepad and Moveable Type are other blogging companies similar to WordPress. The key is finding a one-stop shop place to connect your domain and site to a host.

First, I secured several domain names with GoDaddy and then I opened a WordPress.com account, where I keep my online news directory InOtherNews.us. Through WordPress.com, I easily connected that domain to the blog. The instructions are clear and it can be done in a few clicks. WordPress.com hosts the blog.

After several months of getting familiar with WordPress.com functioning, I started noticing limitations, namely, customization. I wanted to “trick-out” my blog with widgets and plug-ins and play around with themes. I also wanted to add social media buttons to posts and sidebars. WordPress.com blogs allow for those, but the selection is relatively small.

So I went over to WordPress.org — note: it’s DOT ORG — which is the natural next step to custom blogging. With WP dot org, you have to find a host elsewhere, and once you do, there are thousands of site design themes to choose from and a plug-in for just about any function you would want to add to your blog.

And this brings me back to GoDaddy, where my domains are registered. GoDaddy offers site hosting packages, I chose the $6.99 a month Deluxe plan. The hosting can be used for myriad blogging and Website frameworks such as Joomla and Drupal.

Once the hosting service transaction is complete, follow the quick GoDaddy process for downloading a WordPress blog and connecting a domain to it. I did this and was soon playing around with sophisticated themes and browsing hundreds of plug-ins for my new site (and I mean new — it’s a work in progress) NewsRedux.us.

The one-stop shopping at GoDaddy removed a lot of anxiety and frustration with getting my new self-hosted blog on the internet.

And if you get stuck, there’s always the 24/7 tech support phone number.

NetWorked committee member Jessica Durkin is a former old-school print reporter going new-school. Jessica is the founder and editor of InOtherNews.us, a directory of online, independent news sites around the country. She is based in Scranton, PA, and is a regional director for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

In television news you quickly learn what makes a good video story and what should be information put in a script for the news anchors to read.

Video stories have become a vital part of online and newspaper multimedia reports, but not every story should be turned into a video report.  I thought I’d ask three television news videographers to help us in our quest to figure out what makes a good video story and when should it only remain a story in print.

Chuck Denton is a multiple Emmy Award-winning news videographer based near Los Angeles.   He has 23 years of experience and has been a long time freelancer for CBS, FOX, NBC, and ESPN. He’s also won awards for his video editing.

Bonnie Gonzalez works as a one-man-band for an Austin television station.  She’s been a reporter/videographer for more than five years, and admits doing it all has taught her to be creative and resourceful.

Jim Kent is another news videographer with a long resume.  Jim has 10 Emmys and has been awarded Region 10 Photographer of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association.  Jim has more than 20 years experience and has freelanced for Fox and ABC.  He owns his own company in Phoenix called ArtGecko Productions.   

What do you look for in a good video story?

Chuck:  Are there “visual” elements to help tell the story? Covering a city council or school board meeting can be a snoozer to watch unless you can use video to help illustrate the issue. Sometimes local news covers a crime and has no crime scene video from the night before. It can be a challenge. Are the interviews dynamic?  Are they compelling enough to keep folks interested in tuning in?

Bonnie:  Is there action and lots of nat sound or natural sound?  That’s the sound you hear within a story that really pulls you in and makes you feel like you’re there. For example, say I was doing a story on fishing. I’d want to pick up the sounds of splashes, the reel, a fisherman’s laughs or groans, and place a lot of emphasis on those sounds in the story. Watch a story with a lot of nat sound versus one without, and you can really tell a difference.

When do you know it’s just a good print story and not really a good video story?

Chuck:  It’s a good print story when there’s no real video to use or shoot to tell the story. Meetings come to mind!

Jim: TV is a visual medium, that’s a given.  I believe  a great still shot and a well written print story can’t be beat when the story is complicated and complex, and can’t be told in a minute and half in video.

How important is it to have good characters?

Chuck: Having good characters is always a plus, but boring interviews can be offset by compelling video and by keeping the sound bites short.

Bonnie: If you have an interesting character, viewers are going to pay attention. Journalists tend to look towards people who are energetic, emotional, etc.

Jim:  What do we all remember about our favorite stories? Is it the well written copy or is it that great opening or closing shot? Most likely it was that fantastic character that led us through the story. People relate to people, not reporters, besides we all know reporters aren’t people, right? Just kidding.

How important is it to have good sound bites and action?

Chuck: Great sound bites can portray emotion and incredible context of the situation/story you are trying to tell; a grieving family member, a witness to a crime, a victim of a scam, someone well-known who may say something outrageous or out of character. How many times have stories been made for television, because we have terrific home or surveillance video?

Bonnie: If there’s no action how interesting of a story is it going to be? I once did a story on the housing market. My video was only different shots of houses and my interviews.  Not too exciting is it? Maybe I could’ve connected with a realtor and got video of a person showing a house otherwise it was a better print story.

Jim: I never stop shooting until I know I have great sound to tell the story. It’s that important.

Here are some examples of their work:

Chuck’s stories on CBS Evening News “Going with the Grain” and “Fallen Hero’s Story Inspires.”  You can contact Chuck at chuckdenton@yahoo.com

Bonnie’s story on News8 Austin “Prehistoric Mammoths Debut in Waco” and “Junior Chefs Shine in Temple Culinary Class.”  Bonnie can be contacted at bgonzalez@news8texas.com

Jim was one of the videographers on ABC’s 20/20 report “Revenge Against A Religious Sect.”  Jim can be contacted at  artgeckojim@cox.net

Rebecca Aguilar is an Emmy Award winning freelance multimedia reporter in Dallas. She produces videos, digital slide-shows along with her reports. She can be reached at aguilar.thereporter@yahoo.com

O.K. -  so you just shot some footage with your digital video camera.

Now what?

Well, if you’re one of those kids who can’t afford a slick Mac, and you’re stuck with an ol’ PC (like me), you can still edit and produce decent videos with Windows Movie Maker. It’s a standard video editing program that comes with most Microsoft media software packages. Nothing fancy, just basic tools and enough features to allow you to create some nice-looking clips.  It’s a good program to practice on – once you know how to use one video editing program, you pretty much know ‘em all – IMHO, they all pretty much work the same way.

Now then, the only way to learn to edit video….(and sorry for sounding like a sneaker ad here)…. is to just do it.  Here’s how you can get started, in seven easy steps.

1.) First things first: Connect your camera to your PC and transfer your video footage to the computer.  Import the video files into Windows Movie Maker.

2. ) Once you have some video footage to work with, click and drag the  clips to the storyboard at the bottom of the screen. (If you have a lot of footage, it’s a good idea to write an outline ahead of time, so you know where the scenes should fall on the timeline. Oh yeah…and once you start editing, don’t forget to save your Windows Movie Maker project!)

3.) Trim and arrange your clips as necessary. To shorten a video clip, use the “split” button on the bottom right hand side of the screen. Delete the bits and pieces you don’t need.

4.) Add some audio. Mosey on over to the Movie Tasks Pane, look under Capture video, and click on Import audio or music. Drag your song of choice to the video clip where you want the soundtrack to kick in. (If you need to raise or lower the volume, right-click the music on your timeline, and then click on….can you guess?….Volume. Then adjust accordingly.)

5.) Or maybe you want to add a voice-over. To do that, you can record a sound track separately, or connect a microphone to your PC, click on the  Tools menu, and then click Narrate Timeline, and do it right there. You can record your voice to go with individual clips or do the whole movie all at once – it’s your call. But whatever you do – make sure you write a script beforehand. Seriously. Believe me, it’s worth it. If you wing it, and try to narrate your vid on the fly, it’s not going to sound good. (Believe me, I’ve tried. Don’t repeat my mistake. You will not save any time.)

6.) Add titles and credits.  To add written words to your video, just click on the clip where you want to add some text. In the Movie Tasks pane, under Edit Movie, click Make titles or credits. From there, you can choose how many lines the title will have and how it will move. You can also change the size and color of the text.

7.) Preview your movie. If you like what you see, then it’s time to produce your video. Use the Save Movie Wizard to save your project as a .wmv or .avi video file. Once your video file is ready, you can upload it to the web  for all to see. If you don’t have a place to show it off, you can always post it on a free video hosting service such as YouTube or Vimeo.

So that’s my 7-Step tutorial on Windows Movie Maker.

The main sources of information for this article came from the Windows Movie Maker product guide and tutorials on the Microsoft website, and from my own personal experience. FYI, I’ve been editing video for over five years now, and during that time I’ve used many different programs – Final Cut, Cyberlink PowerDirector, Avid, and (of course!) good ol’ Windows Movie Maker. But I must confess, Windows Movie Maker is not my first choice, and I don’t use it that often. So if I missed anything here, please let me know.  I’m especially interested in hearing from any regular users out there – if you have any tips/tricks/hacks to share, please comment below.

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Emily Sweeney is a staff reporter at The Boston Globe. You can follow her on Twitter (@emilysweeney) and find her on LinkedIn among other places.

Sree Sreenivasan is dean of student affairs at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, a social networking whiz, and an all-around cool guy. He recently stopped by The Boston Globe to talk to reporters and editors about the joys of Twitter and how to tweet efficiently and effectively. He showed us some handy Twitter-related tools that journos can use to locate sources, find story ideas, and get more people to check out your work. Here’s a quick sampling:

1.) HootSuite – web-based service allows you to track tweets, manage several Twitter accounts at the same time, and schedule when your tweets will be posted (so you can tweet into the future)

2.) Twiangulate – Find out who the people you follow are following. Great way to discover new sources.

3.) FriendorFollow – Find out who’s following you back (and who isn’t)

4.) Twitcam – Live video streaming. Looking forward to trying this – sounds really cool.

5.) Twitpic – I use this service. Easy way to share photos and images.

6.) Search.twitter.com – Find trending topics.

7.) Monitter.com – Search tweets by location. Another site worth checking out is Trendsmap, which lets you view trending topics in any location, in real-time.

For more tools and tips, check out Sree’s Social Media Tipsheet and his Twitter Guide for Newbies & Skeptics.

…and YO – a word to the wise!  As you probably know, there are zillions of Twitter apps, tools and services floating around out there, and new ones are being created every day. Many of them require that you type in your Twitter username and password to use them. So be careful! Don’t hand over your Twitter housekeys without doing some due diligence first.  Before you type in your Twitter account information and password into any website, make sure it has a solid rep and has been reviewed by some reliable media experts (like Sree, or the good folks here on SPJ’s Digital Media Committee

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Emily “Spikey Em” Sweeney is a staff reporter at The Boston Globe. You can follow her on Twitter (@emilysweeney) and find her on LinkedIn, among other places.

R U you ready for the collision of social media and public records? Is your state ready?

University of Texas journalism professor Wanda Garner Cash had an excellent column the other day in the Texas Tribune about how Texas’ open records laws haven’t kept up with the changing technology, such as the advent of Facebook and Twitter. She noted several things legislators should do to update the laws to ensure transparency in an increasingly tangled-up social media world.

But Texas can’t be the only state facing this issue.

So here’s my challenge to you for the week: Read Prof. Cash’s column — then sit down and think about how well your state’s public records laws deal with text messages, PIN messages, DM’s on Twitter and Facebook messages and write your own piece — whether it’s a column on your news organization’s site or your personal blog or wherever you can. Make this an issue in your newsroom, in your community, in your upcoming elections.

Let’s work to help the public stay one step ahead of government officials and their use of technology, not two steps behind.

Quill isn’t just SPJ’s print magazine – it’s a multimedia resource for all journalists. To accompany his Digital Media Toolbox column in the January/February issue, videographer Jeff Achen made this brief training video on getting better video from a digital SLR camera. Enjoy.

Follow Jeff on Twitter, @jeffachen, or e-mail him at jeffachen@mac.com. And please feel free to share.