Awesome visualization of U.S. newspaper presence

Per some of our recent ENG 2353 discussions, I ran across this simple-but-great visualization illustrating the presence and coverage of newspapers in America's history. The data comes from a study by the Library of Congress, and has options for several different drill-downs. Check it out:

The Growth of US Newspapers, 1690-2011 from Geoff McGhee on Vimeo.

(via Chart Porn)

Serendipity in visual rhetoric?

Notice that, while the due date for our data visualization project has shifted a little, the assignment has been on the syllabus since January. The reason I point it out is only so that you'll marvel - as I marveled - at the coincidence (is there such a thing?) of Chart Porn (a favorite blog), has a recent post featuring a data visualization about data visulization.

Check it out, and prepare to be dazzled!

Chocolate and peanut-butter, or infoGooglegraphical

So, it's not much of a secret that I'm very interested in what Google does, as a corporation AND purveyor/collector/terrifying overlord of information.

And I'm very interested in the ideas behind good infographics. NOT only because they're pretty (oooh, soooo pretty...) but because they represent such wonderfully complicated data sets in particularly useful (and handsome) ways.

Anyway, I have to admit I got a kick out of an infographic on Gizmodo today (via Computer School, where it's bigger and better-looking, via TNW [sort of]).

1 trillion unique URLs? 1 exabyte of data in the next year? 40 billion pages indexed?! [POP.] What was that? Oh, it was my brain sploding.

Quick links to some texting and emailing statistics

From Wednesday's class:

Here is Gizmodo's post on who texts the most (via Mashable).

Here is The Oatmeal's snarky doodle about what your email may or may not say about you.

I'ma go all infographic on you!

OK, so I've written about PowerPoint before (check here and here, for examples), essentially about the possibility that it represents a necessary communications evil. It's ubiquitous; there ain't no escaping it.

Then, one day, my tiny little world-view got all blowed apart (in a great way) by Edward Tufte, which I kind of wrote about here. The Tufte symposium I attended was pretty great on a variety of levels, and one of the many fascinating anecdotes he shared with the attendees was about the U.S. Military's use of PowerPoint.

Basically, he said that they over use it and - perhaps more significantly - depend on it to somehow simultaneously dumb-down and over-produce the presentation of complex data. If you're interested, you can buy a Tufte essay on it here. Tufte also has plenty of posts about PPT on his quasi-blog, including one about Microsoft's CEO hating PPT and an essay excerpt which takes the stance that bad PPT presentations are not merely the fault of the presenter.

Anywho, I was really interested to see a post on Gizmodo yesterday about the military's dumb use of PPT. Gizmodo's post points to a New York Times article, which is where the ridiculous graphic above comes from, that provides a more in-depth look at why PPT just isn't appropriate for any some data. Interesting food for thought (with which most business people will probably disagree).

Edward Tufte and the unyielding passage of time

I haven't posted in a while, but I've got some things coming soon. I went to a symposium last week given by Edward Tutfte, and had my mind pretty much melted. The presentaion itself was dynamite and has given me so much to think about in terms of information design that I'm sort of at a loss as to how to proceed.

I mean, I use PowerPoint all the time, and - in case you don't know - Tufte has a pretty serious hatred of PowerPoint. Well, no that's not exactly right. He argues essentially that PowerPoint, as a medium, has become crutch presenters rely on AND it's dumbed down the presentation of potentially complex data. He points out that even Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, has gotten sick of bulletized, oversimplified slide decks that his company's software creates.

Anyway, I'm doing some serious re-thinking about how I deliver information (create meaning?). In the meantime, I've added a couple great infodesign blogs to my bloglist. go check out what more dilligent writers (staffs thereof?) are writing.