UPDATE: Google Getting Visual Boost

Update: From my May 5th post on the leading minds in the field of data visualization (http://bit.ly/aH6MFJ)

Less than 6 months after leaving IBM's visual communications lab to create Flowing Media inc, Mark Wattenberg and Fernanda B Viegas announced this week that they were snatched up by Google to lead a new visualization group within the search giant. I am extremely excited to follow their progress with the "playgrounds of data" Google has collected.

Look for the visualization duo to impact Google in ways we could have never imagined. I personally, am keeping my fingers crossed for a Google Analytics upgrade!

Data Visualization

“Data presentation can be beautiful, elegant and descriptive. There are a variety of conventional ways to visualize data – tables, histograms, pie charts and bar graphs are being used every day, in every project and on every possible occasion. However, to convey a message effectively, sometimes you need more than just a simple pie chart of your results. In fact, there are much better, profound, creative and absolutely fascinating ways to visualize data. Many of them might become ubiquitous in the next few years.”

Smashing Magazine put together a remarkable collection of visualization projects as well as related articles, resources and tools: http://bit.ly/SmashingMag

Thoughts and resources:

• AdAge article on how data visualization is reinventing online storytelling: http://bit.ly/ManyEyesAdAge
• Many Eyes is a free site where anyone can upload, visualize, and discuss data. It is an experiment created by the Visual Communication Lab. Create your own date visualization: http://bit.ly/ManyEyes1
• New York Times article on Many Eyes, Aug. 31, 2008: http://nyti.ms/ManyEyesNYT

All Roads lead to..

When researching data visualization for this week’s blog posts, all roads seemed to lead to the two co-founders of Flowing Media inc, Fernanda B. Viégas and Mark Wattenberg. To put it bluntly, these two are absolute geniuses and THE leading minds in this field.

Flowing Media Inc offers design, strategy and development services, with an emphasis on media and other consumer-facing industries: http://flowingmedia.com/

Before forming Flowing Media in 2010, Fernanda and Mark’s collaborative website, http://hint.fm/, housed many of their projects.

Fernanda B. Viégas

Co- Creator of Flowing Media In, Fernanda B. Viégas is a research scientist and computational designer whose work focuses on the collaborative side of visualization exploring storytelling, collective sensemaking, and online identity.

• Follow Fernanda on Twitter : http://twitter.com/viegasf
• Fernanda’s website: http://fernandaviegas.com/index.html

Mark Wattenberg

Martin Wattenberg is a computer scientist and artist. He founded and managed IBM's Visual Communication Lab, exploring new forms of visualization and how they can enable better collaboration. Wattenberg is known for his visualization-based artwork, which has been exhibited in venues such as the London Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the New York Museum of Modern Art.

• Follow Mark on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wattenberg
• Mark Wattenberg’s website: http://www.bewitched.com/
• Mark interviewed in The Economist: http://bit.ly/MarkEconomist

A Designer/Statistical Scientist's Playground

FlowingData (No relation to Flowing Media Inc) is the visualization and statistics site of Nathan Yau. He highlights how designers, programmers, and statisticians are putting data to good use: http://flowingdata.com/

• Amazing FlowingData visualization of the growth of Walmart in America: http://bit.ly/Walmart1
• Follow Nathan on twitter: http://twitter.com/flowingdata

Strength in Numbers

“You already just sort of know, logically and instinctively, that Google's got a ridiculous number of servers working for them. That doesn't make it any less mind-boggling when visualized. Get ready for a lot of scrolling.”

• http://bit.ly/googsize

Crayola Crayon Count Visualized

Amazing timeline showing the evolution of Crayola's crayons from 1903 - 8 colors to 120 colors today.

• http://bit.ly/bx25u2