Exactly one week ago we launched Sitegeist, an app to learn more about your surroundings through visualizations of publicly available data. We are immensely proud of Sitegeist and thrilled by the response! As of yesterday afternoon, we have more than 20,000 downloads from both the iPhone and Android versions. Most exciting of all is that there have been more than 300,000 paneviews, which are individuals loading different categories of data. It's the metric we're watching to see how much people interact with and explore the data. It's a big beautiful number and we hope you keep coming back for more!

Media coverage of the launch of Sitegeist was stellar with everything from the Washington Post's Wonkblog to Boing Boing. Gizmodo's review proclaimed that Sitegeist will "scrub a mountain of publicly available data, chew it up for you, and spit easy-to-read infographics right into your mouth like a loving mama bird." Indeed. They even named it one of their Apps of the Week! Android Police said "Not only does the app provide some really useful information, but it looks damn good doing it" and FlowingData summed it up nicely as "Data just a flick and a scroll away."

We're tickled pink with these write-ups but it's also great to hear directly from the users. Hundreds of folks have shared their thoughts on Sitegeist and many come armed with helpful suggestions for new data they'd like to see or bug reports we're rushing to squash. We've updated the inaccurate hazard icon and greased the stubborn "Political Contributions" see-saw! We are hoping to add more features soon and will let you know as we incorporate more improvements (and data!).

I will assume those of you who have not downloaded Sitegeist yet are clamoring to download it now, but for all of you that already have: thank you. Be sure to open the app up when you're home for the holidays and have a happy new year!

Today the Sunlight Foundation unveils our latest app to reinforce the power of the data around you. It's called Sitegeist, a simple iPhone and Android app that presents a huge amount of information from disparate sources in straight-forward infographics. Just scroll and swipe your way through rich statistics about your location from demographics to popular local venues.

Sitegeist is a mobile application that helps you to learn more about your surroundings in seconds. Drawing on publicly available information, the app presents solid data in a simple at-a-glance format to help you tap into the pulse of your location. From statistical data on the people and housing to the latest popular spots or weather, Sitegeist presents localized information visually so you can get back to enjoying the neighborhood.

The app is intuitively designed such that location-specific information that would be normally difficult to track down is now all together in one place on your smartphone. As you user, just launch the app, plug in your location or a spot you're curious about and then swipe between the categories of data. Age distributions, political contributions, median home values, record temperatures and much more will appear instantly. We will continue to add new data and bolster the app as we get public feedback so please let us know with your tweets, email and comments.

Behind the scenes we dug up publicly available data and brought thousands of records together just to display one fact about your location. For example, when you drop a pin on the map and see the age distributions, we are pulling age data from the 2010 U.S. census based on the specific census tract the pin you dropped on the map is in. You don't need to know where to find the census data or even know what census tract you're in, just drop the pin and learn. Sitegeist presents a fresh perspective on a location and lets you consume complex information immediately taking on Herbert Simon's famous observation, "a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention." If you happen to have a wealth of attention, tap on much of data to get more information from the source. Find a contaminated site nearby? Tap to be taken to the EPA's site with a longer description of the issue.

Sitegeist was created by the Sunlight Foundation with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and is the third in a series of National Data Apps. The first two National Data Apps are Sunlight Health, that brings healthcare ratings data and prescription drug safety information to your pocket, and Upwardly Mobile, a web app that helps users find a better place to live by comparing salary, living and employment data and ranking it based on their preferences. Sitegeist was created by the Sunlight Foundation, in consultation with design firm IDEO.

Since we launched Ad Hawk a few weeks ago it's been downloaded thousands of times, featured as an Essential App by Gizmodo and praised by many media outlets. We're most excited to see users actively using it to learn more about congressional and presidential ads as they air - download the app here if you haven't already. To keep building on this early success we're constantly scouring the web for new ads for our database and improving the project.

If you visit adhawk.sunlightfoundation.com you'll see a number of new features that make it the go-to resource for learning about and searching for political ads. In the upper right corner you can now take advantage of ElasticSearch that allows you to find ads by the title name or sponsor. You can also narrow your search results by sponsor name, type of funder or party affiliation. This is especially helpful when you browse the database of more than 2,300 ads when searching for a commonly used term like "freedom" or "Obama."

Another exciting addition is a glossary of terms commonly seen throughout the app and used when discussing campaigns. Little question mark buttons appear next to defined terms whenever they appear throughout the app for quick reference. From 501(c) Organizations to Dark Money and Independent Expenditures to Super PACs, our new glossary gives an at-a-glance reminder on the players and tactics attempting to influence your vote this election.

Other minor additions include improvements to social sharing and honing the technology for pairing audio with ads. We've received great feedback from the community and are always looking for more, get in touch with us here. Thanks for checking out Ad Hawk and we look forward to adding more features and ads as the campaign season heats up.

Ad Hawk is our new iPhone and Android app that empowers you to identify political ads as they air and immediately learn about the secretive groups spending money to influence your vote. Simply activate the app on your phone when you hear a political ad on TV or radio and we'll return results within seconds. We paired powerful open-source audio fingerprinting technology to work in concert with our comprehensive data on campaign finance to bring you the best way to stay informed while you endure the onslaught of ads throughout the 2012 election season.

Ad Hawk listens to arbitrary audio coming into your mobile phone when you touch "Identify this Ad" and creates a short digital fingerprint to compare against the database of hundreds of political ads we collect. If the audio fingerprint finds a match, we send you the information about the sponsor of the ad and other details such as:

• money received or spent
• where the ad is on the air
• media reports on the political group or ad
• places to learn more information

As the 2012 election season heats up, we'll be tirelessly expanding our database and incorporating more contextual information to give you the best tool to illuminate those clouding the airwaves.

Sunlight identifies new ads by monitoring media reports and the YouTube channels of political groups and campaigns. We research and pair these new ads with Federal Communications Commission data on ad spending, Federal Election Commission data on political contributions, press releases about ad buys and relevant news articles. We collect anonymized location data if users authorize us and hope to better map where ads are appearing around the country.

The idea behind Ad Hawk started at a Philadelphia’s Hacks/Hackers meetup, and the project began at the Random Hacks of Kindness hackathon in December 2011. After a few months of follow-up work, the technology eventually found a home at the Sunlight Foundation for further development and publication. Part of the audio technology is powered by Echoprint, an open source music fingerprint and resolving framework, created and made available by the good folks at The Echo Nest.

We will update the database every day and deliver improvements to the app on an ad hoc basis so please let us know what you think!