I have been teaching basic data journalism for a while now – and these links are so useful I keep them with me every time. I will add and update these in the future too
Free and simple viz tools
- Datawrapper: http://datawrapper.de/
- CartoDB: good alternative to Fusion Tables
- Google charts via spreadsheets
- Mapping: Google Fusion tables: http://www.google.com/fusiontables/Home/
- Tableau Public (PCs only): http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/
- Datamarket (esp for time series): http://datamarket.com/
Timelines
- Tiki Toki: http://www.tiki-toki.com/
- Dipity: http://www.dipity.com
- For showing networks: http://gephi.org/
- (Plus Google Fusion has a network map visualisation, under ‘experimental’)
- ISO country codes: http://bit.ly/ISOcodes
Google Fusion Useful Links
- http://delicious.com/smfrogers/fusion
- http://bit.ly/fusionwizard
- http://bit.ly/fusionhtml
- http://bit.ly/fusionworkshop
- http://bit.ly/fusionborderlinks
- http://bit.ly/fusionicons
- Google maps style wizard: http://bit.ly/mapsstylewizard (only useful for map style JSON)
Useful mapping tools to help
- Mapshaper – for simplifying shp files http://mapshaper.com/test/MapShaper.swf
- For choosing map colours: http://colorbrewer2.org/
- Shp escape – for converting shp files to Fusion: http://shpescape.com/
- Google maps style wizard: http://bit.ly/mapsstylewizard
Data journalist, writer, speaker and author of 'Facts are Sacred', published Faber & Faber. Created the 
I know – I miss Many Eyes. It would have been so good if they’d just carried on developing it. Datawrapper has picked up the baton of ease of use though.
Posted by Simon Rogers | January 27, 2013, 10:29 pmI create timelines in http://timeline.verite.co/
and here is my example of timeline http://bit.ly/Su8L41
Many Eyes by IBM…. http://www-958.ibm.com/software/analytics/manyeyes/
Many Eyes (interactive maps, charts, tools for text analyse). I remember that you know Many Eyes but I wrote about it just in case if your readers did not know….
Inkscape (vector graphics software) can be useful to play a bit, draw something… and it’s free
Posted by Russian Sphinx | January 27, 2013, 8:05 pmWhat about timeline.js (http://timeline.verite.co), and all the great MapBox tools: Tilemill and mapbox.com ?
Posted by Mila Frerichs (@mila_frerichs) | January 27, 2013, 7:45 pmHave you had much luck with either? As a non-coder they are a bit intimidating for me…
Posted by Simon Rogers | February 3, 2013, 4:18 pm