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Change Tracker

Knight 2007 News Challenge Winner

This one is for the "wish I'd thought of that" files. Brian Boyer at ProPublica got the bright idea to write a wee widget that uses Versionista to track changes to a handful of White House websites including whitehouse.gov. Since I heard about Change Tracker on Twitter I've been following it on Twitter. They're still getting their bearings: I was surprised to see that the biography of Andrew Jackson was edited on March 4. and couldn't resist looking up the edit, which turned out to be a change to the site navigation. Not all that interesting.

Luckily, ChangeTracker had a few wolf cries left with me so I peeked again when I got this one:
bq. Biography of George W. Bush changed on 3/5 http://tinyurl.com/az8jzp

Which turned out to be quite a bit richer in content. Among the details removed from the 43rd President's biography were observations about commitment to bipartisanship and his work "to create an ownership society and build a future of security, prosperity, and opportunity for all Americans."

That at least gave me a chuckle. What would you want to follow with a Change Tracker?

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The translation plug-in sounds like a very good idea: we at times have long lines in Portuguese shops... or you can use it on the bus... ”

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