September 16, 2004

newsmap goes squarified

I just updated newsmap to a new version fancying a squarified treemap layout algorithm, which tries to keep the aspect ratio of each cell as close to 1:1 as possible. That should make headlines easier to read. It's interesting to see how this new layout gives a different perception of what is big news today. Confused? The biggest news will always be on the top left corner inside each category, the smallest one on the bottom right. The placement of all categories and countries follow the same principle, when the sum of related articles for one story inside each country/category is the greatest, it will be shifted to the top left corner, the smallest ones shift to the bottom right. Of course you can always switch to the standard layout by selecting so in the bottom right of the screen. Use "permalink" to create your custom link for the view you selected.

March 30, 2004

newsmap

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's objective is to simply demonstrate visually the relationships between data and the unseen patterns in news media.