As we previously reported, dozens of developers and journalists from all over the world are in Aarhus this weekend taking part in MediaHackDays, which has been organised by the Danish chapter of Hacks/Hackers and supported by CCI Europe (which is hosting the event at their headquarters) and WAN-IFRA with the Guardian of the U.K. and Knight-Mozilla’s OpenNews as partners.
Talking with a couple of teams this afternoon and seeing demos from others this evening, it rapidly became clear that some very interesting work has been done in a short period of time. While at the moment, all of the projects remain works in progress, the amount of progress in just under 24 hours from teams comprised of only three to six people is inspiring.
For example, a group calling themselves The A-Team actually started last night without much of a main idea, just a strong desire to come up with something interesting and get it built. Within about an hour of the start time, they had an idea in place for an app aimed at travellers that would provide people with relevant, up-to-date news for the country they happen to be in. By mid-afternoon Saturday, the team felt pretty confident with what they’ve come up with so far.
Another team is focusing on a project called Context, which adds depth to stories through extensive relevant linking. They too, are pleased with the progress they’ve made in the past day, and I’m looking forward to seeing their finished product tomorrow.
Still another is aiming to show links between and among news subjects that are related and explain how they are connected to each other.
Yet another group is taking aim at bias in news stories and have come up with an app that allows readers to highlight a particular sentence or paragraph in a story, flag it as biased and lets them add a comment and or link to explain why they see the item as biased.
One of the smallest teams here, with just three members, is well on its way to creating an app called Coffeebear (pictured) that would use iBeacon to alert/invite a nearby user to come in to a coffeeshop for a cup, paying customers would then receive credit to access exclusive content while they are in the coffee bar (provided through a local news provider in principle, and here in Aarhus being provided by the Guardian). The app would also encourage users to participate in discussions with other readers and also allow them to take a quiz on the content.
In our next post tomorrow, we will spotlight more of the teams who are working to bring interesting ideas to life in just a weekend.
Meanwhile, you can follow the action from Aarhus on Twitter at #mediahackdays
See more articles (in Danish) and photos from the event at: information.dk/mediahackdays
Pictured above with their Coffeebear demo are, from left, Joe Sutherland, Morten Krogh and Christoffer Illum.