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[FortNinety]

http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm

From the About section:

concept

Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator. A treemap visualization algorithm helps display the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator. Treemaps are traditionally space-constrained visualizations of information. Newsmap's objective takes that goal a step further and provides a tool to divide information into quickly recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments in constant change around the globe.
Newsmap does not pretend to replace the googlenews aggregator. It's objective is to simply demonstrate visually the relationships between data and the unseen patterns in news media. It is not thought to display an unbiased view of the news, on the contrary it is thought to ironically accentuate the bias of it.

 

[sc0la]

That is hot.

What kind of criteria does it calculate to determine size of each block?

EDIT: Actually a similar mapping, that logged the strips chronilogically, but using the same criteria for size and perhaps changing the shade in relation to the intesity with which that news piece is viewd could present an interesting look at the daily rythms of the news. What breaks when how it is biased as a big story and whether actual viewing patterns reflect that notion.

 

[miyuru]

Hey cool! Now I can be smart about the world, instead of telling my friends how I read about that dude's dick that exploded while he was having sex in the news, as they're discussing foreign policy.

 

[xsarien]

It's very pretty, but about as practical as trying to hammer a nail with a damp sponge. You can't even read some of the smaller headlines. Stuff like this isn't necessarily *good* web design; a website also has to be usable in addition to presenting information in a clear, concise manner.

As far as news sites go, news.google.com is still the best, and although I think nytimes.com could stand a few tweaks, that's good, too.

 

[sc0la]

Well it isn't supposed to be a better alternative to navigating the news. It is more of an "art project" that is attempting to map the news in a visual manner that reveals some sort of patterns etc.

As far as navigating and reading stories goes, this project only further re-enforces bias about what stories you "should" find important because no-one is likely to even browse over and discover what the smaller bricks link to.

Its basically a sort of masturbatory excercise by "new-media" heads

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

How does it reveal patterns? It puts bigger stories in bigger texts... but news sites do that anyway. It also groups them into several categories... also something news sites already do.

 

[Kuramu]

damn, compare the US sports size to the UK sport size

edit: actually, compare UK sports to all of them. the world spends too much time worried about grown men chasing balls around

 

[sc0la]

How does it reveal patterns? It puts bigger stories in bigger texts... but news sites do that anyway. It also groups them into several categories... also something news sites already do.

By reaveal patterns I mean in a loose sense, "patterns" that would really interest few people beyond the odd designer, artist, or new-media crack head. It isn't going to reveal some universal truth like he is trying to find in the movie Pi but similar mappings can do other things like provide as a learning device, or the could just be visually stimulating.

It maps the news into something more visual, it is an abstraction of headlines into something a bit more visceral and a lot less navigable (and useful )

The following are other examples of gross abstraction that are still helpful tools to understand the subject at hand in a different light.

Perhaps a more interesting and pertinent example is artist Mark Lombardi, Lombardi drew complex, sometimes giant diagrams that consisted of nothing mor than little circles with peoples names in them that connected to other little circles with the names of their personal and business associates to the nth degree. Lombardi mapped webs of power and influence that are not only interesting, but sometimes telling and always vicsually wonderful. Lombardi's map drew connections between GWBush and Bath, Saudis and Harken far before it was "cool" to be a tinfoil-hatter-against-bush. He drew this map in 1999.

Clinton (seen here) got mapped in equal fashion, as did many powerful figures and business entities.

These don't tell us anything we could not find out in some arguably more simple manner. You can find out about the Bush Bath connection by searching public record, watching F911 or listening to your favorite partisan radio jockey. Sure you can find out this information in another way, but there is something powerful in a mesterful reduction of information into a single crafted and thoughtful diagram. (Lombardi kicks this google map's ass to china and back BTW. I am not arguing this is genius, just that the form merits exploring)

 

[gofreak]

I took one look and closed my browser. It's hardly useable at all. For those interested in whatever info can be mined from such a layout (patterns, or whatever), then fair enough, but if you just want the news, google's design beats the crap out of it.

 

[Phoenix]

It is a confused mess of infomration that is far harder to use than any other method of news browsing I've seen.

 

[The Faceless Master]

It is a confused mess of infomration that is far harder to use than any other method of news browsing I've seen.

i agree, that crap takes to much time, and it's too muddled... some of the stuff you can't even read at all...

scrolling down thru headlines is way easier