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Transparency Data Tropo Application Slides

Transparency of data has been a huge topic, and rightfully so. The people at Sunlight Foundation created transparencydata.com and while I like their web UI, I wanted a way to look up contributors on the fly. Like, say, with my phone’s built in SMS feature.

Thanks to their open API, I created this tropo.com application that can be queried from an IM, SMS (cellular text message), or Twitter*.  Below are some details. I will no doubt add more functionality in the future, but don’t hesitate to contact with me with on-and-off topic ideas for this.

What does it do?

Send along the state and name of your subject. In this case, we’re looking up who contributed money to a political campaign, committee, or organization. The system will return the amount of public records it could find from the extensive dataset provided by the source (see above) and some pertinent details. More information is always being added and requests are welcome.

Try it for yourself!

Message format**: [2 letter state code] [contributor name***]] 

• Jabber: tdata@tropo.im
• AOL IM: transparencydata
• SMS: (240) 242-7944
• Twitter*: Mention your query to @tropotdata

* - As a result of the way Twitter works, the application is set up to only return the total amount of contributions for your query. For up to 9 specific results, use IM (AIM or Jabber) or SMS. This is in order to not flood Twitter. 

** - Other search criteria. Include any of these words or numbers anywhere after the state code in your text message.

• You can include years to narrow down your results. The year should be the cycle of the political campaign. Use pipes as OR statements. For example, “2006|2007|2008|2009” would return results from campaigns only in 2006-2009.
• You can also search by the seat type.
  • For federal seats, include any of the following words: “senate”, “house”, or ”president” (or “federal” to search all of these, or “senatehouse” to search both senate and house seats)
  • For state seats, include any of the following words: “lower”, “upper”, or ”governor” (or “state” to search all of these, or “lowerupper” to search both lower and upper state seats)

** - You may also include 

*** - Contributor name can be a full name, surname only, or even a company or organization name.

Examples/Screenshots

Have fun looking up yourself, family, coworkers, and love interests!

Much more to come.