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VisualWikipedia, at visualwikipedia.com/en/, takes the information found in Wikipedia (wikipedia.org/) and presents it in a visual format. Enter your search, and you get map that shows how the subject relates to other concepts. Click the links to read articles and new maps on these topics. You’ll also find related YouTube videos and links to external sources of information. It’s fun, and it will help you research your topic in more detail. Do you want to see how people are connected on Twitter? Visit Twitter Friends Network at snipurl.com/a940r, and enter a name. You’ll see that name (with the user’s Twitter photo), with a circle of their connections. Click any of those connections, and the user’s connections will display in turn. You don’t have to log in to Twitter to get this interesting view of someone’s social network. Search engines are becoming visual, too. One of my favorites is Quintura (www.quintura.com/). Search results are displayed in text format on the right side of the page, and on the left is a word cloud – a grouping of words relevant to your query. The larger the word, the more significant it is to the topic. Click any of the words to perform another search. I frequently use this for expanding or narrowing my searches. Do you have a favorite tool for information visualization? Let me know, and I’ll post responses on my blog. And if you find yourself hooked by the subject, look into the work of Edward R. Tufte (www.edwardtufte.com/), author of the seminal The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. See you next month - Marcy Marcy Phelps Phelps Research Author, Research on Main Street: Using the Web to Find Local Business and Market Information (Forthcoming) +1 303.239.0657 Email: mphelps@phelpsresearch.com Web: www.phelpsresearch.com Blog: www.MarcyPhelps.com |
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