For those with a morbid sense of curiosity, or perhaps an overdeveloped spirit of adventure, take a look at the latest mashup application from the New York Times, the “New York City Homicides Map.”

A murder near Sunset Park in Brooklyn. That’s my old apartment between the crosshairs, indicating its proximity to the crime.

This Flash application combined a database of information about murders from the past six years, including the age of victim and perp, primary motive, and weapon, with a cheery Google Maps interface. You can search the map by time of day, weapon used, or go directly to your street address and watch the violence rage around the little red crosshairs that indicate the location of your home.

These crosshairs might be a bit a too tongue-in-cheek for such a grizzly app.

Overkill aside (get it????), the ability to offer interactive maps of data like this has to be a huge factor in the survival of newspapers. The map links to an article about a related topic, and the article directs readers to visit the website and explore the database. Readers can also comment on their own observations of the data in the paper’s City Room blog.

How can newspapers offer online content of increasing quality, such as this murder map, without finding a way to monetize it? On the other hand, how can they afford to keep their doors open without the lure of high quality content?

Before you throw that punch to defend your girlfriend’s honor, better make sure you’re not in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee or Pasco county,  Florida. A new website, tampabaymugshots.com, collects booking photographs and data for all arrest records in these counties and displays them in a shiny Web 2.0 tool in the war on the presumption of innocence.

In this latest illustration of something we can do but probably shouldn’t, the site’s creators throw privacy and human decency to the wind and remind us that this information is already available on the websites of the county sheriffs, and that they are merely compiling it on their site as a “public service.” (That’s funny, I thought the sheriff’s websites already took care of that – and without selling any ads for Cabot cheese…)

Even more flabbergasting are the site’s FAQs, which range from “I was arrested but cannot find my mug shot. What gives?” to “Are RSS feeds available?” (the answer: an ominous “Not yet.”)

The site does provide a grudging disclaimer. “Those appearing here have not been convicted of the arrest charge and are presumed innocent. Do not rely on this site to determine any person’s actual criminal record.” However, this disclaimer appears in tiny print underneath a nifty carousel of mug shots.

Sample tampabaymugshots.com mug shot

Sample sheriff website mug shot

So I ask you: where is the line between privacy and public safety? Is it okay to mash up any content we find on the web, regardless of its pejorative impact on the lives of those who may or may not be criminals? What about the argument that this information actually is available already on the public record, and that this site just makes it a bit easier to find?

When I began writing this post ten minutes ago, there were 227 people listed on tampabaymugshots.com. As I finish up, there are 232. Where will you show up on the web the next time I click refresh?

(Photo: MIT Senseable City Lab)

Check out these frigging awesome interactive bus stop prototypes designed by MIT. I was just thinking the other day how cool it would be if I could sync my cell phone with my local bus stop to know when I should run downstairs to catch the next bus. While I was pipe dreaming, MIT was prototyping. That’s why they are awesome and I am always missing the bus.