information aesthetics.
The goal of Facebook's Project Palantir is to "visualize all the data that Facebook gets". Each Facebook action is geo-located on a 3D globe, becomes a particle that floats off the surface of the Earth, and then disappears. Facebook interactions (e.g. friend requests, pokes, wall posts) are shown by 3D splines or a trailing mesh connecting 2 locations, with each color representing a different sort of interaction.
Watch the at Facebook, or the high-quality YouTube version below.
Similar globe-based visualizations include: Google's Information Display at GooglePlex, 3D Live Stats, the still impressive InfoMagnet, Google Proximity between Cities. One more Facebook visualization is the Lexus social network graph, and there is a considerable collection at .
In the meantime, lets see whether the recent addition of as an Interactive Information Designer at Facebook, and known from the stacked of LastFM listening behaviors, will bring forward more Facebook visualizations!
Thnkx Nick. Via .
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well, this doesn't do justice to the vast and interesting amounts of data facebook gathers...
why did they spend so much time for not needed effects (sun, stars), but don't draw the splines along great-circles? (you can see some lines that spiral around the earth...)
hope, that'll get better, would be very interesting.
It's worth mentioning that this was made during the Facebook Hackathon, which was a one-night event. There are a ton of snarky comments on TechCrunch by people who didn't really get that.
Really the Facebook interaction is increasing.. and it is getting sprayed in many other countries of the world..and getting popular...
It is really interesting..
Well, Google has this in their lobby for years, we need something new!
There are already many tools visualizing your friend network, or activity of large number of people, but I didn't see anything that has practical usage or inspiring. Way to go!