[HN Gopher] Launch HN: HiGeorge (YC W21) - Real-time data visual...
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Launch HN: HiGeorge (YC W21) - Real-time data visualizations for
public datasets
Hi HN! Anuj here. My co-founder Amir (Aazo11) and I are building
HiGeorge (https://hi-george.com/). We make localized drag-and-drop
data visualizations so that all publishers, even the small ones,
can better leverage data in their storytelling. Think Tableau with
all the necessary data attached. At the onset of the pandemic Amir
and I were looking for local data on the spread of the virus. We
visited the sites of large national newsrooms like the NYTimes and
were impressed by the quality of data visualizations and maps, but
they lacked the geographic granularity for our own neighborhood.
We then turned to our local newsrooms but found they presented data
in tables and lists that made it difficult to comprehend the virus'
spread and trends. We wondered why. After talking to local
journalists and publishers, we found that newsrooms simply do not
have the resources to make sense of large datasets. Public
datasets are hard to clean, poorly structured, and constantly
updated. One publisher explained to us that she would refresh her
state health department's website 5 times a day waiting for updated
COVID data, then manually download a CSV and clean it in Excel.
This process could take hours, and it needed to happen every day.
This is where HiGeorge comes in. We clean and aggregate public
datasets and turn them into auto-updating data visualizations that
anyone can instantly use with a simple copy/paste. Our data
visualizations can be drag-and-dropped into articles, allowing news
publishers to offer compelling data content to their communities.
Check out a few versions of what we're doing with customers --
COVID-19 data reporting at North Carolina Health News [1], COVID-19
vaccine site mapping at SFGATE [2], real-time crime reporting in
Dallas, TX [3], and police use of force at Mission Local [4].
Today, HiGeorge works with dozens of newsrooms across the country.
Our visualizations have driven a 2x increase in pageviews and a 75%
increase in session duration for our partner publishers. We charge
a monthly subscription for access to our data visualization library
- a fraction of the cost of an in-house data engineer. In the long
run, we are building HiGeorge so that it becomes the single place
to collaborate on and publish data content. We'd love to hear from
the HN community and we'll be hanging out in the comments if you
have any questions or feedback.
[1]https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2021/02/09/coronavir...
[2] https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/vaccine-sites-San-Fra...
[3] https://lakehighlands.advocatemag.com/2021/02/data-crime-tre...
[4] https://missionlocal.org/crime-data/
Author : saigal
Score : 64 points
Date : 2021-02-19 15:57 UTC (7 hours ago)
| samblr wrote:
| Visualisation look good.
|
| But have to say landing page is simply the weirdest I have come
| across in a long time :)
|
| The visualisation in landing page & how it works are chopped off
| on right side!
|
| It is not clear on how it works with existing data sets. Say I've
| a csv or a database, can higeorge connect and show some
| visualisation ? How does this compare to Superset/Metabase etc ?
| bookmarkable wrote:
| I would explore small starter plans - a couple of published
| charts / stories per month - or even one per month. IMHO, a lot
| of marketers like myself are professional story tellers and use
| data extensively. We'd love your product, potentially. It isn't
| news, per se, but we still use data viz to communicate to the
| public. I can't justify $199/mo. but wish your team well with the
| concept.
| saigal wrote:
| Ah, I love this. While we are starting with news publishers, we
| are HIGHLY aware that others (marketers, bloggers, press teams
| at enterprises, and many more) are interested in storytelling
| that is supplemented with data. Another great example are
| Substack writers. We are exploring individual plans. May I ask
| what you would be willing to pay as an individual?
| soheil wrote:
| I didn't know links in the description of HN posts were
| clickable. Is this true only for Launch/Show HN? Or maybe because
| they're a YC company they get special treatment?
| ahstilde wrote:
| I think it's only for Launch HN (show HN is a link post, not a
| text post).
|
| It doesn't seem to be for YC only. Here's an example from a
| non-YC co: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23466470
| tracyhenry wrote:
| This is very nice idea. Glad you find a model to make this a
| viable business.
|
| I wonder in the long run how do you decide what data/vis to
| publish? People care a lot about trendy topics, e.g. mars rover
| now, GME short squeeze a few weeks back and wildfires last year.
| But those are short-lived, which might not be as profitable as
| things like COVID and election?
| saigal wrote:
| In these early days we perhaps spend more time thinking about
| this question than any other. After speaking with hundreds of
| news publishers, the truth seems to be that certain topic areas
| have "staying power" while others are more fleeting. For
| example, rental price trends, real estate trends, economic data
| (e.g. unemployment rates), environmental issues (e.g. air
| quality)are always relevant. The other nuance is that these
| topics have constantly updating data feeds since the the
| realities of the world are constantly changing. Kind of like
| the Pareto principle.
| tracyhenry wrote:
| Understand. It's unfortunate that those fleeting trendy
| datasets are hard to monetize. At the same time they seem
| equally important in terms of the degree to which people care
| about. Just look at the stuff on r/dataisbeautiful, which is
| a mix of the two. IMO fleeting datasets could be pretty good
| marketing if done right.
| soheil wrote:
| I couldn't find any pricing info on your site, can you please
| share more details here?
| saigal wrote:
| Pricing depends on the size of publisher/newsrooms; it starts
| at $199/month for access to our data viz library. For
| individual newsletter writers and bloggers, we are
| experimenting with plans that are less.
| rsingel wrote:
| Would love to hear what your favorite and least favorite datasets
| are
| aazo11 wrote:
| Least favorite would definitely be California campaign finance
| data.
| saigal wrote:
| "Favorite" is probably the wrong word but the most 'insightful'
| data viz could be the one that shows the disproportionate
| impact of COVID-19 on different racial groups. Here's an
| example for San Francisco.
| https://missionlocal.org/2021/02/2-19-tracker/
| soheil wrote:
| I like the concept a lot, but aren't the newsroom outsourcing
| their due diligence to a company that may not have the same
| standards (or lack of) as their own? If I'm NYT (hint I'm not)
| why would I trust you to provide data that is the central point
| of my narrative and what if that data goes the other way as time
| progress?
| saigal wrote:
| Every data visualization that HiGeorge publishes is
| reproducible using the Associated Press data guidelines (Link
| below, note that acct creation may be required). This means
| that anyone (journalist, editor, even the reader) can easily
| verify that the data is accurate and can assess for themselves
| whether the data source is reputable.
|
| Each of our data visualizations is connected to a data feed so
| that it is always up to date. They are of the "set if and
| forget it" variety.
|
| https://www.apstylebook.com/ap_stylebook?az_chapter=80&other...
| soheil wrote:
| Assuming news orgs only want to tell the truth may be a bit
| too naive.
| saigal wrote:
| It is true that some newsrooms have a point of view that
| they push. While data can be manipulated, the desire is
| that data visualizations from reputable sources (e.g. CDC,
| etc) can help separate fact from fiction.
| soheil wrote:
| One man's trash is another man's treasure.
| soheil wrote:
| Do you get a lot of backlinks to your site from major domains,
| hence improving your SEO?
| aazo11 wrote:
| Currently our data viz get embedded through an iFrame so the
| backlinks are from our front end domain, unless we get an
| explicit shoutout in the article. However, we plan on moving
| the "powered by HiGeorge" HTML tag outside the iFrame to help
| with SEO.
| soheil wrote:
| But whatever domain is embedding your iframe is still sending
| you backlink juice, be it to your front end domain.
| foolinaround wrote:
| you might consider a free plan that limits the overall
| views/requests over a period (day/month). Once exceeded, you can
| provide a simple message stating this, and come back tomorrow,
| etc. It would be great for small-time bloggers and websites.
| saigal wrote:
| I like this idea a lot. For now we offer a limited set of data
| visualizations that are self-serve and entirely free here:
| https://hi-george.com/selfserve
|
| Requests for other data sets are welcome
| foolinaround wrote:
| this is super-cool, thanks.
|
| You might want to highlight this on the landing page.
|
| Can I please ask for some weather related datasets - snow
| received over time, over the past years etc.
| saigal wrote:
| Good recommendation. May I ask what is the use case -- blog
| post, academic journal, news article? If you send us the
| url to where the data is, we can certainly take a look. pls
| feel free to email me at anuj@hi-george.com
| searchableguy wrote:
| Woah, this is exactly what I was looking for. I had vaccination
| data that I wanted to visualise but seemingly nothing in the
| market makes it easy to put it out there fast.
|
| Google chart library is great (if you have heard of it) but they
| come with restrictions on their geocharts. They require Google
| Maps Platform API key in the client which made me reconsider
| using it. I only needed a simple choropleth chart for which
| static geojson feature file would work, no need for fetching from
| Google maps for every user.
|
| Great work. I will check it out.
| saigal wrote:
| We should have what you need. Feel free to email me at anuj
| [at] hi-george.com
|
| Also you can browse our library at https://hi-
| george.com/visualizations
| searchableguy wrote:
| Thanks. I saw the pricing in the comments. It wouldn't be
| affordable for me for the project I wanted to do above (I am
| not getting anything from it). Nonetheless, good luck. It's a
| real problem.
| saigal wrote:
| Similar to what I mentioned in another reply, for now we
| offer a limited set of data visualizations that are self-
| serve and entirely free here: https://hi-
| george.com/selfserve
|
| if there is a data set that we don't cover, please feel
| free to request it and we will get back to you asap.
| ahstilde wrote:
| Very cool! Selling to news publishers is really hard, though.
| They're cash strapped, and the industry is in a lot of turmoil.
| The PE firms that are buying up papers are not known for
| investing in the journalism. How are you approaching this
| challenge?
|
| Also, what public data sets do you use? This seems like a natural
| evolution of Steve Ballmer's USAFacts: https://usafacts.org/
| saigal wrote:
| PE firms and hedge funds that buy papers want to maintain
| quality journalism in a cost-efficient manner. HiGeorge does
| exactly this. It enables newsrooms to have geographic coverage
| while maintaining low overhead. Because the ROI on interactive
| data content is high (increased time spent on page, increase in
| pageviews etc) buyers of papers look very favorably on a
| solution such as HiGeorge.
|
| We can ingest any public datasets. USAFacts is fantastic and
| would be a fabulous partner for us!
| samtimalsina wrote:
| I think this has potential. I would move away from the "Corporate
| illustration style" if I were you, it's getting some pushback
| lately. Also, a minor nitpick about the logo which reads
| "HIGEORGE" as a single word.
|
| I instantly searched for pricing, and was put off by the lack of
| it. I think if I were a small publication, my chances of
| subscribing would be a lot higher if I knew how much it would
| cost me without going through a sales person. Maybe you are still
| figuring out prices right now?
| saigal wrote:
| Pricing begins at $199/month for small publishers, increasing
| for publishers that have larger size/scope. Your feedback
| regarding availability of pricing on the website is noted and I
| can understand the friction caused by needing to speak with
| sales. It is a change that we are currently weighing.
| higeorge13 wrote:
| Nice name. :-)
| saigal wrote:
| hahaha
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(page generated 2021-02-19 23:01 UTC)