I See What You Mean

Michael Friendly and Daniel J. Denis have a wonderful interactive timeline on milestones in the theory and practice of data visualization. Be prepared to spend a lot of time there; it's a deep well. Milestones in the History of Thematic Cartography, Statistical Graphics, and Data Visualization

Presenting headline news (via Google ) in the age of information visualization. This is Newsmap , created by Marcos Weskamp , a Bay Area design engineer who does infoviz and interaction design. Here's how this treemap works: As you mouse over each box, a callout pops up containing that story's first few sentences. Across the top are the different countries you can focus on, or you can select all for a worldwide sample. In the lower right corner are tabs corresponding to different newspaper sections (the colors of which are reflected in the map); again, you can customize the newsmap to suit your interests. Bravo, Marcos.

Based on a common and surprisingly versatile visual metaphor, this subway map of the cinematic universe was recommended by some film critic friends.

Created by a couple of UK computer science students, this newly upgraded aggregator/search engine delivers results that are both broad and deep. Tags are used extensively and to good effect, but the infoviz applications are where the action is. The Network widget is probably my favorite. To use, hover over a small graphic image to highlight its connections with other items in the network. Hover over bits of text for pop-ups providing additional information. Double-click a node if you want to drill down. If you're looking for news from a certain region, click the Hot Spots map widget and drill down from there. You can further refine the search by filtering the topic of the news stories. Unfortunately, the Trends app is buggy, poorly explained and therefore far less useful. And Silobreaker's collection of pre-set topics (global issues, tech, science, business, energy and world) is certainly incomplete. Even so, the site's dashboard-style interface provides lots of entry p...