The World Is Full Of Interesting Things...

I spotted this over on Neil Perkin's blog Only Dead Fish. It got a lot of Twitter love last Friday but just in case you missed it, and because I think it's pretty special, here it is for you.

This is the updated 119 slide version of the Google Creative Labs presentation all about recent creative ideas and web campaigns covering everything from advertising to art, and politics to literature. This was put together by Tom Uglow and while it is viewable right here, just as Neil suggested, you should have a look at it on Google Docs for the full effect. This is simply brilliant.

A Day In The Internet

This is a really cool visualisation by Søren over on RoBoilr.dk, showing a day in the internet and exactly how much data we move and create (via the always excellent Nick Burcher).

Data Visualisation: SMS Messages

I've posted before about Data Visualisation and this is one of the best I've seen. This is a video by Aaron Koblin from Google Creative Lab, showing a visualisation of SMS messages in Amsterdam on New Years Eve.



Hat tip to Tony Effik

Wolfram Alpha Unveiled

Back at the end of March I posted about Wolfram Alpha. Last week Dr. Stephen Wolfram, the inventor and creator of Wolfram Alpha, unveiled the first working demo of what is being heralded as possibly the most important technological invention of the the last decade.

At the Harvard University showcase, the renowned Particle Physicist showed the scientific community what is refereed to as an "answer engine" or "knowledge engine", rather than a search engine. It provides users with the function of typing a question and being given an answer. Bare in mind, that's an answer and not a list of websites. As such Wolfram Alpha is not what is being termed a Google-killer. It really isn't in direct competition with Google at all.

Part of the demonstration saw Dr. Wolfram enter various questions or queries, each to complete success. For example, when he entered 'Weather Oakland, California' the knowledge engine immediately came back with a full breakdown of weather patterns for the region over the previous 10 years.



After the showcase Tom Simpson, noted Digital Marketer, said: "What are the wider implications exactly? A new paradigm for using computers and the web? Probably. Emerging artificial intelligence and a step towards a self-organising internet? Possibly... I think this could be big."

Wolfram Alpha is perched on the crest of a wave with the potential to wash across the world changing the way we access and search information. Foremost the system's potential is its ability to compute answers "on the fly" (according to Dr. Wolfram), giving it the ability to tackle new questions that it has never seen before. This in turn gives it the ability to 'learn', producing faster results the next time that question, or one similar, is asked. The knock-on effect of how Wolfram Alpha 'learns' could be the first real steps towards artificial intelligence.

A key differentiator between the way in which Wolfram Alpha accesses information, how Google does it and how Wikipedia does it, is in the way the information is managed. Wikipedia is based on a user generated system that is moderated, edited and compiled by the public itself. In theory the information is correct due to collective input, however on niche topics it is not always the most reliable source. Google on the other hand uses bots and spiders to crawl the web and determine what it is that is on a webpage. This system is limited in that any information stored in exotic formats or within images is inaccessible to Google and it relies heavily on what the creator has 'tagged' the information as. Wolfram Alpha on the other hand will operate as a 'curated' system. It will rely on a team of up to 1,000 experts to assess if the information Wolfram Alpha is drawing on is indeed correct. Beyond this, the system is heavily based on Dr. Wolfram's award-winning Mathematica software, which is used everyday by scientists, engineers and mathematicians around the world.

Interestingly, Dr. Wolfram hasn't however ruled out any strategic alliances with these or other internet businesses, saying, "We're working to partner with all possible organisations that make sense; Search, narrative, news are complementary to what we have. Hopefully there will be some great synergies." He also confirmed that the system will utilise Wikipedia's popularity index to determine what users are likely to be referring to, when it comes to pop culture based questions.

Visual Complexity

I've posted several times about data visualisation, but you can't possibly imagine how excited I was to find VisualComplexity. I know, I know; I sound like such a geek, but it is so ool to see the different ways that people interprit information, and visualise it.

I think it's an art form. No question. To take some sterile and analytical, and transform it into a visual representation that tells you everything in a single glance, what took pages of words and numbers to do the same.

VisualComplexity describes itself as "a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks. The project's main goal is to leverage a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of disciplines, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web. I truly hope this space can inspire, motivate and enlighten any person doing research on this field".

If you ever have to report on statistical data, be it marketing reports or something else, go take a look at the site. Really impressive stuff.

Data Visualisation and Storytelling

I have always loved how people interpret data and visualise it to make it easier to understand. The very nature of one person trying to create an understanding of complex information through non-vocal expression can take so many carzy routes, and the fact that anyone is even able to achieve this is even crazier. Visual interpretation for an individual is based on their own personal experiences and their specific perspective on that visual at that time.

Two people look at Van Gogh's 'The Scream' and one sees a person screaming, while the other sees a person hearing a scream.

So whenever I see a new data visualisation tool, I get a bit excited. The last 6 to 12 months have seen a lot of really interesting directions and attemps by various people for various purpouses. I was going to write a round up of my favourite and just as I started I was sent this article by Garrick Schmitt, in AdvertisingAge. This is a great article and I would urge everyone involved in the digital world to read this.

Email Data Visualisation

I'm a geek. I freely admit it. I'm also really into Social Media in all its forms - Blogging, Social Networking, Micro-blogging etc. etc. I also have a professional interest in the convergance of data, and how the meaning of data is rapidly becoming more accessible to AI systems (admittedly simple AI systems such as webbots and spiders).

So when I saw this, I loved it!
Christopher Baker analysed over 60,000 emails sent and received since 1998 to understand the "social network" created by his correspondance. Further to this, he decided the best way to represent the dats was visually:


"Like many people, I have archived all of my email with the hope of someday revisiting my past. I am interested in revealing the innumerable relationships between me, my schoolmates, work-mates, friends and family. This could not readily be accomplished by reading each of my 60,000 emails one-by-one. Instead, I created My Map, a relational map and alternative self portrait. My Map is a piece of custom designed software capable of rendering the relationships between myself and individuals in my address book by examining the TO:, FROM:, and CC: fields of every email in my email archive. The intensity of the relationship is determined by the intensity of the line. My Map allows me to explore different relational groupings and periods of time, revealing the temporal ebbs and flows in various relationships. In this way, My Map is a veritable self-portrait, a reflection of my associations and a way to locate myself."

- Christopher Baker

Digital Visualisation

I was recently asked if i could lend a hand to a report by analysing the data flow involved. It wasn't a task I particularly wanted to do (sorry Roisin) but promises were made and so forth. The analysis wasn't difficult but I found myself slightly stumped as to how I should best represent the information as a graphic. All I could think of was an early post of my own on social network visualisation, and an article by Faris and Noah written for Contagious.

Neither fitted the bill, but with a little research I found this reference piece by Sarah Perez. This is a great list to keep to hand, and demonstrates the vast number of methods out there to visualise digital information. Excellent stuff!

Enter the Nexus

There are many tools out there to visualise networks; I’ve looked at various programs that can visualise dynamic interactions between individuals. However, so far, nothing has come close to Nexus in terms of usability, ease of interpretation or automated profile build, for Social Networks.
Nexus automatically retrieves your profile information from your account. Representing friends as dots, each person who is a friend is connected by a line, with thicker lines for people who also share interests.

What I think is most interesting is that as soon as I ran Nexus on my own profile, the result was exactly as I imagined it would be. My groups of friends appeared in their own clusters when they have no contact except me, and the individuals that span several groups became focal points of contact between groups.

This is how my circle of friends looks:

Innovative Search Engine

I Stumbled Upon SearchMe and had to share - it's similar interface to Apple's Cover Flow.