This is the first time I’ve seen something that made me feel like I could see the way technology and data connect us together since NASA published it’s “Earthlights” image as their Photo of the Day on November 21, 2000:
I finally created a Twitter account the other day, but since I have a pretty dumb phone, using Twitter isn’t much of an experience for me yet. I get most of my microblogging satisfaction from Facebook at this juncture. But, the Twitter phenomenon really intrigues me as a point of social moment and also as an evolution of business and marketing. I’ve been reading a lot about it, and it really fascinates me.
Those who know me well know that I’m a fan of the work of Edward Tufte (author of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Yale University Professor Emeritus of Information Design, among other things). So, seeing inventive ways of telling a story with data always excites me. In watching this short video tracing Twitter “tweets” through the day preceding, of, and after President Obama’s Inauguration, where the tweets have the word “inauguration” in a positive context, I feel like I’m seeing a storytelling technique of such genius as I’ve never seen before. Now, certainly this is a video, meaning that the display of the information incorporates the dimension of time as a primary component of the display, so comparing it to amazing, static demonstrations of displaying quantitative information is not apples to apples. But nonetheless, I am floored by the story this simple display tells. I feel like the Information Age has truly arrived.
A brief while after the event itself took place, we can visualise the social consciousness of a nation and a world collectively focusing on the event and its significance. Talk about Collective Soul. I’m a staunch Individualist, but this captures the essence of Obama’s vision of people investing in something larger than themselves in an aptly poetic way.
This video is hosted at Flowing Data, a site dedicated to the visualisation of data. Here’s an excellent article on what they consider to be “the best of” that field for last year.