A couple weeks ago I spoke on a panel about using databases as content. Joining me (among others) was Chris Willis, the VP of Social Media for Footnote. (Some of you may remember Chris as the head of design at Belo Interactive in the late ninties/early aughties. He's also the co-author of We Media, an early influence of ours.)
Footnote is a digital archive and database of historical documents ranging from The Smithsonian Collection to stuff people have in shoeboxes in their attic. AND it allows users to freely annotate and comment on the documents.
Chris showed me their latest project, which absolutely blew my mind -- and made me really understand the value of all their work. They've created an interactive Vietnam Veterans Memorial that allows you to browse, search and comment on all 58,320 names. And we're talking deep data like rank, specialty, religion, regiment, place of death and much more.
There are lots of search capabilities. For instance, here's the roster of people from Dallas. Here's all Texans.
The browse is equally amazing. They've managed to create a fast-loading Flash implementation of a full-size, high-resolution image of the wall. You have to see it to believe it.
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