links for 2010-01-25

"Governments around the globe are opening up their data vaults – allowing you to check out the numbers for yourself. This is the Guardian’s gateway to that information. Search for government data here from the UK (including London), USA, Australia and New Zealand".

"They have agreed to be linked to the outside world only through Twitter and Facebook. No web surfing is allowed". So does that mean they can't follow links on Twitter and Facebook, rendering the whole exercise even more aimed at getting a pre-determined outcome than it initially sounded?

"I’ve recently been looking for sets of icons for all of the social websites that I belong to for my website, blog, and also print handouts. In the course of my research I’ve come across some excellent icon sets that designers are giving away for free".

"Tracking topics on the Web can be a painful process, due to the amount of noise and difficulty of filtering it. So to help you out, we've selected and categorized the leading topic-tracking tools". I saw this via iLibrarian, but the tools are equally useful for journalists and amateur historians alike.

"The BBC is currently taking an in-depth look at how its services reflect the lives of lesbian, gay and bisexual people as part of both its wider Diversity Strategy and its responsibilities under the Charter to reflect the diversity of the nation. We are conducting audience research to gain a deeper understanding of how all audiences view how we portray lesbian, gay and bisexual people across our services."

"The quality, convenience and competitive pricing (in Google's case, mostly free) of the products and services offered by both brands is what's keeping them dominant in their expanding (and no doubt soon to be overlapping) sectors. To what extent consumers will start factoring the volume, usage and transparency of personal data collected by these and other companies and how that will weigh against factors such as cost and convenience remains to be seen."