Visual.ly Infographic Search & Data Visualization Tools Launch Publicly. In the world of a highly visual web, data has remained largely static and visually uninteresting. Visual.ly aims to change that with extensive infographic aggregation and a set of automated graphic data representation tools. What Visual.ly Is and Why It's Awesome Ladies and gentlemen, there's a fine line between journalistic reporting on a new project and just gushing over something one thinks is cool. I'm now going to step boldly over that line: This service was clearly made with users like me in mind, and I'm very excited for the potential shift it indicates in visual searching. Now, retreating a bit, let me give you a mix of information on what this service is and why I was pumped to write about it. You'd be hard-pressed to find people who aren't fans of infographics – graphic representations of otherwise tabled/alpha-numeric/bland data – but if you happen to be someone who hates visuals, Visual.ly isn't the service for you (shocking, I know).
Automated Tools for Data Visualization. Visually Launches To Automate The Making Of Infographics. The whiz kids behind Mint’s infographics, Stewart Langille and Lee Sherman are today launching the first startup that solely focuses on mass producing infographics, Visually. Users who visit Visually this morning can see over 2000 infographics uploaded by designers like Jess3 and Dave McCandless as well as upload their own in a myriad of topics ranging from Science to Sports to the Economy. In its first launch iteration, Visually has partnered up with The Atlantic, GOOD Magazine CNNMoney.com, Ebay, The National Geographic and others to provide infographics content in exchange for sharing links — On Visually each participating publication gets to upload its own graphics, which are embedded and shared using an code generated by Visually.
Visually plans on monetizing eventually by letting publications subscribe to its offerings via a monthly fee. The duo have almost 500K in seed funding to make this dream come true. Visualization deconstructed: New York Times "Mapping America" Data visualization is an emerging domain that is deeply rooted in the tradition of cartography, having evolved to match the quantity and diversity of data we find in today’s technological environment.
In this first post in an ongoing data visualization series, I’ll take a closer look at the New York Times’ Mapping America interactive map of the American census data. This subject also gives me an opportunity to talk briefly about the relationship between cartography and visualization. As the ancestor of data visualization, cartography was initially used to navigate the land and the sea, to give us an overview of our physical space and help us explore the world more safely. Maps were catalyzers for the development of human societies. Cartography quickly evolved to display not only the shapes of the land but also location-specific data, such as temperature, population or tax income. Mapping America The topographic base is a custom-styled Google Maps overlay. Data and Visualization: Predictions for 2011. A lot of my time these days goes into planning DataMarket‘s efforts in the new year.
An essential part of that is trying to grasp the major trends in areas that matter to us. DataMarket is building an active marketplace for statistics and structured data. We believe in a “visual data exploration” approach, meaning that users’ first experience with any data is a visualization that should provide a quick overview of what the data is all about, then allowing users to dig deeper to see the raw numbers, download the data in various formats, embed it in other web content or connect to the data live using our API. This vision, and our goals for the coming year – including our launch of an international data offering – frame the topics that I’ve been thinking about. For links to broader predictions in the fields of Big Data and Data-as-a-Service see the bottom of this post. That said, here are the things I believe will shape our key areas of interest in 2011: Data Markets Chart solutions VC activity.
Want to email files to your Dropbox? Send to Dropbox does just that. Only a quick hit, here, as sometimes the most useful applications are the ones that are dead simple. If you have a Dropbox account, you’ve probably already fallen in love with it. Being able to drag and drop files into the cloud, then share them with whomever you want is amazing. I keep finding more uses for Dropbox all the time. This most recent is probably my favorite yet.
Send to Dropbox lets you email files directly to your Dropbox, and can even take a few actions for you once they’re sent. All it takes is a quick visit to the site, then you have to authorize Send to Dropbox with your Dropbox account. Once that’s done, you’ll have a custom email address to which you can email files directly into your Dropbox. In the Send to Dropbox preferences, you can choose what will happen when your files arrive. Again, it’s dead simple, and incredibly useful. Adobe Announces Cloud Tools to Simplify Mobile Working.