Monthly Archives: March 2007

All a Twitter

I swear I just nodded off for a moment but now that I’m awake everywhere I look online I find talk of Twitter. It’s gone mainstream so fast even John Edwards is Twittering.

Twitter explains itself this way: “A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing? Answer on your phone, IM, or right here on the web!”

You send a message of no more than 140 characters when you’re eating sushi, retching in a porcelain bowl or having sex with bats, it doesn’t matter. Just let the world know. It’s the ultimate expression of The Culture of Narcissism.

“True, on first glance it is a baffling and seemingly pointless service – but underneath it proves intriguing, useful and addictive for those who live on the move,” contends the Guardian. “One observer called it ‘the Seinfeld of the internet … a website about nothing’.”

There are already a host of Twitter add ons, which offer even more options for sending “tweets,” as they’re called, including by instant messenger, email and RSS. But the most addicting is Twittervision, where you see new tweets appear in real time on a world map.

“Twittervision is a hypnotic glimpse into the lives of people around the world. It’s a complete waste of time, in the same way that conversation, casual sex, and reading are wastes of time,” writes Nat Torkington on O’Reilly Radar. “It generates an amazing feeling of connection to what people are thinking of in the world (or at least in the primarily Western world that seems to be the Twitter customer base). This is a kind of ambient zeitgeist for the world and word of it is spreading like wildfire.”

Here’s my Twitter page. Now if we can just convince all of our sources to tweet all of the time, just in case we need to know where they are on deadline …

Database of information graphics

Infovis offers “1200+ examples of information visualization.”
The Parsons Institute for Information Mapping (PIIM) is building this searchable database of information graphics from visitor submissions and numerous repositories on the internet. It was begun as an internal resource for PIIM employees, as a purely academic endeavor (all sources are cited). Part of our research program is to classify these and other information graphics according to a taxonomy under development.

As the database has grown, we felt that it could serve as a generally useful resource. We are accepting submissions with the goal of establishing the most comprehensive, manually annotated (and taxonomically classified) information graphics database in the world.


Costhelper

Costhelper helps you “Find out what price other people are paying” for everything from child care to botox treatment:

Each topic contains an article researched and written by our editorial staff. Our writers and editors are committed to providing high quality, accurate and objective information. While the site is supported in part by advertising, we clearly demarcate the independent editorial content from links sponsored by advertisers.

But our articles are just the start. We invite members of CostHelper.com to share their own knowledge and experiences with others, to create the broadest, most detailed community resource possible. Our vision is to create a place where you can find cost information on whatever you are looking for, wherever you may be looking, so you can easily plan your budget, find a great price that others are paying, and get started on buying what you’re looking for.

Google Maps supports GeoRSS

Google Maps now supports GeoRSS, which is a way of embedding location information in RSS feeds. What this means is that you can more easily add custom information to a Google Map. You can do this by creating an RSS feed with GeoRSS tags embedded in them, then entering the Web address for the RSS feed in the Google Maps search box, such as this quickie demonstration I did to commemorate the departure of Univerity of Kentucky basketball coach Tubby Smith for the University of Minnesota. The Google Developer Blog explains why they’re doing this, along with explaining added support for its own format, called KML. Making custom Google Maps still requires some knowledge of programming, but I don’t imagine it will be long before anyone can do it.

Infodoodads

I must be self-absorbed, because when I first saw this blog’s name I read it as info-dads, when it should be info-doodads. “infodoodads is a blog that reviews and discusses existing and new tools, services, and technology for finding information on the internet. What kind of information? Any kind. The women behind infodoodads love to learn and find information, and every day new tools are being created and unveiled that help people find, sort, and interact with information.” I learned about it from The Intelligent Agent blog, which likes it a lot.

Income distribution movies

Information Aesthetics features two YouTube videos that animate U.S. income distribution. Is this an as-yet unexploited method for newspapers to illustrate complex issues? (Granted, any video of anyone doing anything embarrassing, goofy or in the buff would dwarf the viewership of something like that, but we’re just throwing ideas out here.)

Open record adultery?

Mark Hebert of Louisville’s WHAS11 reports on a Kentucky man locked in an open records battle with state lawyers over his wife’s email:

Steve Malmer suspected his wife was fooling around with a co-worker at the Kentucky State Justice Cabinet.

His wife basically dared Malmer to go get her work e-mails to the suspected lover. So Malmer tried. Now the Justice Cabinet is suing Steve Malmer, trying to keep him from getting his wife’s state government e-mails under the Kentucky Open Records Act, saying it could impact every state workers personal e-mail.