I love data visualisation. Not a sentence I thought I’d ever write but with 2.0 technology, suddenly data is alive and sexy and brilliant.
This is a word cloud image made from words most associated with Barak Obama in hundreds of press releases. Imagine the live version powered by blog feeds. This kind of thing would make incredibly powerful digital outdoor posters - watch this space.
and this is one of my favourite websites of the year from Goodby Silverstein for Sprint mobile.
Now that we have just finished the fourth series, it seems as good a time as any to add to the millions of ecstatic reviews on the web. Never in my life have I watched anything so amazingly gripping, so poignant and so heartbreaking. The Wire is a true master class in writing, storytelling, acting and social commentary. Every single episode weaves a whole spectrum of emotions into it, allowing the stories to unfold at such a natural pace and with characters who are beautifully developed so that you care about just the plight of just about everyone. It’s astonishing.
It’s been around for ages but I really love this site. Basically it summarises critical reviews of anything from albums, videos and films to books and TV. I love it. like all the best web apps, it is an aggregator, giving you a quick snapshot of what people are saying. Best of all, the way it is laid out means you can get a good overview in seconds.
They say on the site ‘We feel strongly that multiple opinions are better than one, and also that the presentation of these critical opinions must be done in a concise, organized and easy-to-understand manner in order for them to be useful. We also encourage our users to dig deeper on matters that interest them by providing links to full reviews whenever possible. Finally, we believe firmly in providing a pleasant, popup-free user experience for our visitors. Job done I reckon.
Jeremy Paxman interviews Dizzee Rascal about Barak Obama’s win. Brilliantly watchable. There will be loads of people saying Paxman is being patronising and he does ask an idiotic question in ‘do you consider yourself to be British’ but think ‘Mr Rascal’ comes across really well here.
This is very cool game demo by a games developer called Ian Dallas. The Unfinished Swan puts the player in a completely white (or at times, black) world where you can only find your way around by splashing paint on your surroundings. Beautifully engaging. The Unfinished Swan - Tech Demo 9/2008 from Ian Dallas on Vimeo.
Love this for two reasons:
The strategic insight - it’s easy to miss something you are not looking for. Gives the creatives endless possibilities. Very nicely executed too (much better than their previous youtube rip-off). Chris Palmer is a brilliant director and for me it shows. Simply done but done very well.
I wish we had the digital bit. We could do some fantastic things with it.
