Social Web Involvement Visualization

Global Map of Social Media - December 2009 -
This graphic shows the geographic breakdown of different social web technologies (photo, video, social network, blog, microblog) and the extent to which they are used among those with internet access. The research from TrendStream is based on interviews with 32,000 Internet users in 16 countries.

via mashable.com

Periodic Table of World Internet Facts

Here's a different approach to depicting the internet as a periodic table from appfrica.net [see another version here]. This article explains how to read the table -- essentially each country is listed with the following information:

"Each block contains up to eight pieces of information. The rank (and sequential order of the chart), place among the top ten fastest growing internet populations, the country code (also the countries ccTLD), rank among the countries with the fastest bandwidth speeds, percentage of population using the internet, the country name, and in some cases whether or not the block represents a country or territory."

Languages on the Internet

This is from a really thoughtful post on 'China and the World Map of the Internet', which includes several iterations of visual representations of how China relates to the world. The version above is the cloud map view of the relative proportion of languages used on the internet.

Visualization of the Journey of a Tweet

Here's a visualization of how a tweet find its way around the internet and into our networked lives. See the write-up on Next Generation Online about how this project came to be.

Interview with Frank Jacobs on the power of maps

Map lovers out there will enjoy this interview with Frank Jacobs (of Strange Maps).

The Boom of Social Sites

This infographic shows the relative size of social networking sites chronologically distributed by the year they were launched.

via Stefan Waldeck on posterous

Good Morning Twitter

GoodMorning! Full Render #2 from blprnt on Vimeo.

From Fast Company:
"Twitter is a coming goldmine for data visualization, given all the data it provides. The projects we've seen are still early stage, but Jer Thorp's been one of the best early experimenters. His new project, "Good Morning!" is a visualization of 24 hours of Tweets saying, of course, "Good Morning," from all across the world. Each of the tweets has been color-coded by time--green tweets are early morning, local time; orange occurs somewhere around 9am; red tweets are late morning; and black represents Tweets that are "out of time," meaning that they don't correspond with actual morning hours."

Apple HQ App Store Visualization

I visited Apple headquarters in Cupertino this week and saw this incredible visualization of real-time purchases from the iTunes App Store. Cameras were prohibited, but I found this video online, which gives a sense of what the display is like.

Internet Mapping as Performance Art

See Sara Schnadt's online portfolio for more information about a series of performance art exhibitions she undertook on the topic of connectivity. This image is from a performance piece she did in 2007, described on her site as:

"Two days a week throughout the month of December at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Sara Schnadt constructed a network of string, thread, twine and wire between two maps across the gallery. By connecting these maps - one, a text-array map presenting large quantities of popular internet search terms, and the other, a geographical map plotting internet access around the globe - Schnadt created a low-tech visualization of the world wide web. Using a wide range of found and donated fiber she metaphorically celebrated the many types and sources of content on the web and its publicly accessible, free exchange of knowledge."

via feastoffun.com

Submarine Cable System Infographic

Here's an updated look from TeleGeography at the world's submarine cable system, upon which our internet connectivity relies.

"This map shows 93 of the world's major submarine cable systems, as well as 28 planned systems that are due to enter service by 2011."

MIT's Personas Project

Here's a fascinating new project from MIT:

What is Personas
Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, recently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab (Please contact us if you want to show it next!). It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one's aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.

How Does it Work?
Enter your name, and Personas scours the web for information and attempts to characterize the person - to fit them to a predetermined set of categories that an algorithmic process created from a massive corpus of data. The computational process is visualized with each stage of the analysis, finally resulting in the presentation of a seemingly authoritative personal profile.

Venn Diagram in Search of Accurate Information on the Internet

A little humor from Bunny Comics.

Internet Visualization from AT&T Labs

AT&T Labs is doing some very interesting things with network visualization. I came across this graphic on Flickr, but can't find the original version on AT&T Labs' site, but I certainly wish I could find out more information about it.

The Internet in 1901

Here's a map of the earliest form of the internet, sourced from Tom Standage's blog post. It maps telegraph lines in 1901.

iA Webtrend Map 2009

iA's fourth version of their web trend map is here! I've posted on previous versions in the past: V3, V2

Keyword Mapping

KWMap is an interesting site that applies visualization to help us identify better keywords for web searches. Basically, you enter a keyword to start, which appears at the intersection of two strands of related keywords. From there you can select any of the related keywords to "recenter" a new list of keywords. The visualization itself is not dynamic (i.e. it always shows your keyword on the continuum of the same two strands), but is somehow much more appealing than other keyword generation sites.

Akamai Visualizations

Akamai, a company providing platforms for global internet content, has some interesting visualizations of dimensions of the internet including traffic, latency, performance and attacks. The map above shows traffic using a real-time heat-map style display.

From their site:
Akamai handles 20% of the world's total Web traffic, providing a unique view into what's happening on the Web - what events are generating traffic, how much, from where, and why....get a feel for the world's online behavior at any given moment - how much rich media is on the move, the sheer volume of data in play, the number and concentration of worldwide visitors, and average connection speeds worldwide.