Ever wondered what the Twitter milky way might look like?
The Social Collider reveals cross-connections between conversations on Twitter.
Mine have done some lovely twirly things in the middle. Not entirely sure how to harness this knowledge, but it makes a nice picture at any rate.
Micah L. Sifry, co-founder and editor of the Personal Democracy Forum wrote this great piece last week, proving once again the importance of our attitudes when interpreting facts.
"How many of you get twitchy when you can’t check your email or your mobile or your Twitter or Facebook account? How many of you are thinking right now, I wish I had my laptop? How many of you have ever experienced losing your device, or having to send it away for repair?
It feels like a lost limb, no?
Well I’m here to say it’s all for the good that you’re feeling twitchy.
That twitch makes me optimistic about the future. Why?
Three reasons.
1. Because I believe in the power of a small group of people to change the world. As Margaret Mead said, nothing else ever has.
2. Because I believe that the more we decentralize control of information and increase our abilities to dig up facts, the better decisions we’ll make.
3. Because a lot of us are deciding to live more of our lives in public and as a result, pool our brains.
But why am I more optimistic now than at any time in my life? Because I think we’ve never had such good small-group making tools or such good information-connecting tools. We’re developing a global social nervous system. As a result, I think bull-shit is in trouble.
And it’s all because of serendipitous findability—the odds that you will fortuitously connect with someone you don’t know but share an interest with, or the odds that you will learn something timely or surprising or valuable to you.
That’s what the twitch is about: improving the odds of a chance meeting: Chance meetings between people, and chance meetings between facts, and chance meetings between people and facts.
Interactive communications technology is all about upping the odds of a chance meeting. It’s the combination of search + living in public that makes this possible."
Via: Cassie Robinson
I mentioned last week that I mad keen in visuals at the moment. For anyone wanting to see a full range of visualisations please visit Visual Complexity. Links to a couple of examples below:
Maps of Science
The Essence of Rabbit
After fiddling about with a number of mapping tools lately I have found Cmap pretty useful for concept maps. It is not fancy, but it isn't as restrictive as mind maps - Free download here
And finally, if you like Hans Roslings very cool moving bubble chart from TED talk (below) - see more on Gapminder
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