A couple of highlights from a session on infographics. Alberto Cairo, assistant professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill talks about the three levels of infographics.

First there are instructional ones, where people click through a graphic. These are everywhere now but less commonplace are graphics where you can manipulate data. Cairo says these graphics allow users to adapt it to their needs and goals. These types of graphics are starting to appear more and more.

The third level are graphics that allow you to explore, where people are free to explore a virtual world. Cairo likened this to World of Warcraft.

But he added that linear graphics are still relevant and stressed that infographics were one way of the mainstream media distinguishing itself from citizen media.

Another smart guy on the panel, Aron Pilhofer, editor/interactive news at The New York Times. His main point is that you just cannot throw data online, saying this is what machines do.

He makes an argument for what he calls opinionated data. By this, he does not mean biased data. He means making editorial decisions about data.

He is right to stress the need to think about how using the data helps to tells a story. And he is also spot on in arguing that data needs context and analysis for people to be able to make sense of the information.