Category Archives: Online

Not really surprising data about Birmingham traffic (sort of)

UXBlog  A National Portrait of Drunk DrivingIt’s an interesting contrast if you step back and think about it – two recent lists look at how Alabama’s largest city handles its ever-growing traffic situation with differing messages.

This morning the Birmingham Business Journal shared information courtesy of a new report by their company’s in-house data investigation unit, On Numbers, that ranked Birmingham 347 out of 373 metro areas in terms of traffic congestion.

The city did finish faring better off than Dallas-Fort Worth, TX (358); Orlando, FL (359); Miami, FL (364); Houston, TX (367); and Atlanta, GA (372).

While it appears that you’ll be on the road for a while attempting to get to and from work, it’s also true that the city sees less accidents occur involving drivers under the influence. It’s not necessarily great news when you consider it’s still considered a cause for 13.6% of fatal crashes involving alcohol, regardless of population size, between 2000-2010. It was good enough though for John Nelson of IDV SolutionsUX Blog to recognize it had the lowest percentage of such fatalities among cities across the nation.

The black circle on the image up above helps you identify metro Birmingham on the map.

He published the data as part of providing a more exhaustive explanation of the findings he used to create an interactive map just before New Year’s Eve. Folks are getting a chance to dig into the data a little deeper courtesy of a post made yesterday to The Atlantic Cities.

It’s interesting when looked at in conjunction with the census tract data visuals we wrote about yesterday

How rich or poor is your block?

Rich Blocks, Poor Blocks   Neighborhood income maps of U.S. cities-120115That’s the question this recently launched web app attempts to help you answer. Rich Blocks, Poor Blocks uses the U.S. Census Bureau’s definitions for median household income and the results of the 2006-2010 American Community Survey to create a visual representation for you. Clicking on any point on the map will provide you with the information, while the state’s median income in 2010 dollars is visible in the lower right corner.

The map can be searched either by metro area or by specific address. It’s interesting to note the range of median household incomes throughout metro Birmingham. It’s also been an eye-opening experience to see the commentary accompanying the sharing of the site in other cities across the country, including Dallas, TX (courtesy of the folks at FrontBurner); Washington, DC (by way of The Daily Viz); and Berkley, CA (via the fine folks at Berkleyside).

The tracts are somewhat misleading if you’re looking at it for trends. Besides recognized issues with the margin of error contained in the data used, there’s also the fact that some of these tracts just don’t have that many residences inside their boundaries. The map shows Census tract 27 in Jefferson County as having a median household income of $15,806. The tract includes Birmingham’s central business district, Railroad Park, the BJCC and the city’s automotive district; it also includes the city’s loft district.

It’s still a pretty powerful image and one worth exploring on your own.

Local ABC affiliate under the media microscope

ABC 33/40 logoIt’s not like Birmingham, AL hasn’t been making its share of news about news recently. It appeared to do so again yesterday, when Jim Romanesko’s website highlighted a decision by the city’s ABC affiliate, ABC 33/40, to pull a story about the pending nuptials for Good Morning America’s weekday weatherman, Sam Champion and his his longtime boyfriend Rubem Robierb announced last week.

The thread that originated the conversation was started on October 8, three days after the original post was made to the station’s website. It was the same day they posted a link on their Facebook page to a brief piece on gay marriage as it relates to the race for Alabama’s State Supreme Court chief justice.

The link referenced to in the Romanesko story does indeed point to the site’s “our apologies” page.

A search online though does provide a link to an AP story posted to the owned station’s site about the nuptials (the one referenced in this Facebook thread). According to the site, the AP story was published at 3:17 p.m. CT on October 5 (the same day it appeared on the GMA portion of the Yahoo! News site at 2:25 p.m. ET ) and references his title on the show in the URL slug. A close look at the URL sequence also shows that the link referenced to in the Facebook thread was a newer post (#19762177), perhaps a duplicate to the original (its sequence number is 19748879).

The removal of the Facebook references are ironic when you consider the same day Champion’s news broke, they shared another piece via their fan page about the expanded influence of the social network. It does make you wonder though what would have happened had this series of events happened on Saturday (it’s the official observance of  Gen Y Get Offline Day) or next March during the National Day of Unplugging… Or do you ever unplug?

A website launches for 2013 commemoration

birmingham13.com screenshotSomething that hasn’t been talked about very much – at least publicly – are the plans to commemorate 50 years passing since the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in September 1963. A visit to the city of Birmingham’s official website now provides you with a link to one major source of information about those plans.

Birmingham13.com is the official website for the commemoration, reminding those who visit that it was part of “the movement that changed the world.” According to the site’s city plans page, there will be a traveling exhibition (called “The Civil Rights/Sister Cities Traveling Exhibition”) visiting five sister cities highlighting their contributions: Selma, AL; Washington, D.C.; Jackson, MS; Columbia, South Carolina; and Memphis, TN. (Montgomery, AL is listed on the site as well though the original National Press Club announcement from January did not include the city.) The site also suggests that the Birmingham Civil Rights Heritage Trail will be expanded (it would be the second time that the trail was expanded and the first instance since late 2010) in addition to plans for a humanities conference and a three-day festival in September. You can also watch the video of Mayor Bell’s remarks at the National Press Club on the site’s “Sharing” page.

It contains a calendar section as well that will most likely be updates with events being organized by other organizations and institutions as details are finalized.

Screenshot: birmingham13.com home page.

Yes, Real Rap Wives of Birmingham exists

real rap housewives screenshotIf you looked at the query list on the back end of The Terminal yesterday, a common search thread was “real rap housewives of Birmingham.” Once you get more than five folks looking for the same thing and stumbling across the site, it means you’ve got to figure out exactly why they’re looking for it.

A search turned up a brand new YouTube channel, 21 subscribers, and well over 2,000 views as of late last night.

Considering the aforementioned Viacom blackout currently underway for DirectTV customers, it was only a matter of time before something like this popped up. This first “webisode” of Real Wives of Birmingham (part 1 | part 2) isn’t the first time the Wives have appeared online – at least not according to what you find when you do a search for them. For example, there’s this episode found via the Bham Music Blog from last April. There’s also this review posted on July 16 over on the Los Angeles based The Cynical Ones. Maybe you can let us know if you agree with Michael’s assessment of the show or not.

Two chances to vote Birmingham this week

Birmingham has at least two chances to use their well-known voting prowess to help catapult two individuals into the cable television spotlight in the coming weeks.

Last night Martie Duncan became one of the final four for the current season of The Next Food Network Star. You can vote up to 10 times a day by phone or online via the show’s website (with a Facebook account). As pointed out in today’s Birmingham News article by Chanda Temple, you’ve got until 4 p.m. CT tomorrow (Tuesday, July 16).

The folks at 106 & Park on BET are asking viewers to vote for who they want to see as the next hosts of the long-running show via The Search. We’ve found one person currently campaigning online in Birmingham to be considered for one of the slots, Wondrea Gilmore (known on Twitter as @Dree_GotU). Her YouTube video’s up and her requests on Twitter for help have gotten a nice response so far. Of course, if you’re a DirecTV subscriber, watching every day to see if it comes on TV is just a little harder than it used to be. Just saying

If you know of any other metro Birmingham area people considering submitting for The Search, let us know in the comments section.

Instagrams of Birmingham? There’s an online home for them

instagrambham badgeSome who’ve been online in Birmingham, AL for a while probably remember the Magic City Flickr Group. It still exists (with more than 20,600 photos and 800+ members as of this digital entry) as does The Terminal‘s Flickr Group, Birmingham Weekly‘s SEEN pool, and a profile maintained by Weld for Birmingham.

Well there appears to be a new and growing group of individuals who’ve turned to the popular photo sharing app Instagram to expose themselves and others to images of Alabama’s largest city. Instagram Birmingham lives entirely online; its Twitter profile only has 10 followers (& it hasn’t said anything… yet), but its brand page on Facebook currently has 80 people sharing what they’ve been able to capture digitally – with that number only able to go up.

The group connects using the hashtag #instagrambham when sharing their images on Twitter. Local fans of the smartphone app have gathered in person before as well, including back in March as part of the first annual Instagram International Photowalk. Incidentally, our namesake in the UK is preparing to hold one their own on July 26 as part of the next international photowalk that weekend.

Maybe we’ll learn some more about how our folks plan on taking part soon?