SimonWaldman.net

Richard’s quick aside about offering the sort of analysis that can only be done on the web, has got me thinking.

He points to the pure genius of Gapminder which manages to tell you dozens of stories with graphics, data and animation in seconds, that would take thousands and thousands of words to tell otherwise.

The current frenzy with mash-ups has set everyone off mapping everything to everything. It’s almost always quite smart - but does it actually help? And does it tell a story any better?

Twittervision is rather like twitter itself, strangely compelling but not hugely useful. What’s interesting is the way that putting this on a map, rather than as a constant stream of text (even with a flag or location attached) gives a fantastic sense of scale. For some strange reason I’m much more interesting in watching this collection of random utterances from strangers popping up round the globe than getting text messages from people I actually know telling me they’re about to go on the tube/ feed the cat etc.

I am rather attracted to Platial and if I had the time, I would finish off my ‘There are places I remember map’ and turn it into a spectacular mapped autobiography, rather than a half-arse list of places I’ve lived. That said - I quite like this tale of a mis-spent youth - but I’m not sure a map is the best way to represent it.

I suppose it only works when the spatial difference between two points really matters. Or when you start to see clusters of similar activity. For example, although I doubt it’s comprehensive, this map of Web 2.0 HQs points to a very vibrant European scene.

And Adrian Holovaty’s Chicago crime is a case book example of how a map really can tell a story. One look at this and you know where not to walk after dark. The problem is you have to click pretty carefully to eventually find your story - it’s more a tool for a reporter, rather than a substitute for one.

Nature, has garnered lots of plaudits for it’s Avian Flu/ Google Earth mash up (.kml file here) because the very crux of that story was how it was spreading globally. It’s just a shame that they seem to have given up before it made it on to the UK.

But, Buzztracker - looks gorgeous, and is clearly a work of considerable genius, but is in fact pretty useless. Why? Well, actually - all it would really need to work well is a filter on the news. So, if for example ti was only headlines about global warming related incidents, then both the mapping and the interrelationships would be tremendously useful.

Similarly - Ben O’Neills mash up of Google maps and BBC news doesnt’ really do it for me. Yes, it’s very smart - but unless there is some grading of the different type of stories - the map is actually a pretty weak introductory tool.

In print - Campaign does this thing where they show a map of the world - with arrows coming off it and stories scattered around the map. I’ve always thought this to be quite a dumb tool - what matter is the relative priority of these stories - normally represented by headline weight etc - rather than their distribution.

However, using a map as a navigation tool for the most popular stories on the BBC news site as part of their live stats package is really rather neat, but it’s not strictly necessary. What makes it both necessary and illuminating is the mix of that and the display of volumes of usage by geographic region.

Elsewhere, I can’t help thinking that this BBC History Interactive map on the slave trade actually makes it harder to follow the story than easier. I suspect that’s because it’s actually telling a story where the defining characteristic is chronological - not geographical.

Anyway - that’s a long ramble. I suspect someone has written a dissertation or two on this, but here’s my concluding thought. Nothing original I suspect: A map works only if the location of events is the key story that you’re trying to get across - and it’s either going to be the similarity or dramatic difference in location of comparable events/ information.