Trinity Mirror are closing Ampp3d and UsVsTh3m. Here are just 7 9 of their best moments, in reverse order. Are there any you think should be here too?

9. More people may have died building venues for Qatar 2022 than will play in the 2014 World Cup

Mary Hamilton describes this as “the single best interactive I have ever seen for mobile.” At the time I wrote a whole post about it: This simple piece of visualisation will have you rethinking what you know about impact and mobile:

“The result [of the graphic on mobile] is percussive: 23 players, 23 dead workers; 23 players, 23 dead workers: 23. 23. 23. 23.

“By the time we reach the USA team, after 32 repetitions of this pattern, we are punch drunk. Then comes the knockout:

“It’s the physicality of the experience which is fascinating: moving your finger or thumb down and down and down as you try to reach the end of these deaths. Just try it: view this on a mobile phone now.

“This is an experience very different to print, or broadcast, or even desktop web design.

“And it demonstrates that you can create impact on mobile; that a distracted audience can still be compelled to stop and scroll, and scroll, and scroll. And share.”

8. Owen Paterson’s Badger Penalty Shootout Game

Thanks to Tom Phillips in the comments for reminding me of this one: a satirical but interactive take on a statement in Parliament by Owen Paterson, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Philips points out:

“You can trace, to the minute, the time from when my mate Francis suggested to UsVsTh3m that they do an “Owen Paterson’s Badger Penalty Shootout” game, to when they put it live. 4 hours and 21 minutes to publish a fully playable game about a news event that happened that morning. Nobody else could come close to doing that then; nobody else has got anywhere close since”

7. Has the Royal Baby been born yet?/Not The Royal Baby Live Blog

Journalists will liveblog anything. UsVsTh3m liveblogged nothing, twice. Narrowly beats the Ed Balls Day liveblog on the basis of two strong simple concepts and minimal work involved (a string of GIFs/cute animal pictures).

6. GCHQ agents probably saw half a million c**ks in a six month period

Another dry and complex subject rendered accessible through penises.

5. Hey X! We just fixed your chart for you

There was a strong tradition of fact checking at Ampp3d, and a whole genre of “Hey X! We just fixed your chart for you”. These were two of their visual highlights.

4. Play Your House Prices Right

Telling the story of rising house prices through a gameshow format. Where can you go wrong?

3. How a “90% accurate” Alzheimer’s test can be wrong 92% of the time

This was a story about false positives and statistics. Yes, we need more of this in the news.

2. That massive @Ukip surge in councillors in full

A quite brilliant use of Vine to bring data journalism to life. Anthropomorphism on a 6 second loop.

1. Live counter: Watch how much NHS money is going into private hands

Ampp3d pioneered the use of counters in journalism (see also: Watch Wayne Rooney’s
earnings add up in real-time and Watch how many foreigners enter the UK. Every. Single. Second.). This has to be the best use of a counter I’ve seen: taking new technologies and applying it to campaigning journalism).