Visualizing data has always been a a major priority in just about every project I’ve worked on in the past 8 years. Most people don’t know it, but before I was dragged into programming, I was doing graphic design for a living (manuals, covers, and web sites) and I’ve never let go of those skills.

More often than not, I hear developers complaining that they’re not designers which means they shouldn’t be required to make any consideration for how things look, feel, or operate. I know none of you really believe that though - I’ve seen the ASCII art you try to make. Perhaps there’s a middle ground.

Several months ago I read an intriguing article by Edward Tufte on the notion of Sparklines. What’s a Sparkline you ask? It’s an “Intense, Simple, Word-Sized Graphic”. That’s the concise way of saying that it’s a small graphic that crams a lot of data into something that fits well inline with text.

Yesterday, Hylton (founder of Corante.com), sent out a link to site with a collection of links that were all quite interesting. By chance, it happens that one of these links, to the Functioning Form Blog, was to an implementation of Sparklines for Web Logs. Naturally I had to know more.

I was blown away to see something I had been thinking about for some time but hadn’t found the means to illustrate. Luke Wroblewski, the blog’s author, has done an awesome job. Here’s what he’s come up with:

A simple Web-log post continuum sparkline could plot the current post a reader is viewing, the previous posts it references, and the later posts that reference it. This paints a picture of where the current post originated (what ideas it draws from), and where it went (how those ideas evolved).

The sparkline could also provide a macro-level overview of when the post occurred (in the life of the blog) how many posts are related to it and when those were added. So you could potentially see a flurry of writing on a particular topic, a lull in the evolution of the topic, and then a return to the topic at a later date (though perhaps less active).

Source: Functioning Form Blog, “Web-log Continuum Sparklines”

I really believe in Sparklines. I’m using them in another project I am trying to get off the ground. Heck, I even own sparklines.com. I also believe that Flash is the perfect medium for developing sparkines for the online world, though CSS does come in at a close second.

So the challenge is this. Can anyone produce this in Flash using the following data:

// SparkLine Object
function SparkLine(timeFrame, timeUnit, prevColor, currColor, fwdColor, cat2Color, cat3color) {
	// Baseline properties
	this.timeFrame = (timeFrame) ? timeFrame : 52;
	this.timeUnit  = (timeUnit)  ? timeUnit : 'Weeks';

	// Color properties
	this.prevColor = (prevColor) ? prevColor : '#ffcc00';
	this.currColor = (currColor) ? currColor : '#000000';
	this.fwdColor  = (fwdColor)  ? fwdColor : '#ffcc00';
	this.cat2Color = (cat2color) ? cat2Color : '#ffcc00';
	this.cat3Color = (cat3color) ? cat3Color : '#ffcc00';

	// Data
	this.data = [];

	// Methods
	this.addData = new function(index, newData) {
		this.data[index] = newData;
	}
}

// Web-Log Continuum Object
function WCL(postURL, postLength, isCurrent, category) {
	this.postURL = URL;
	this.postLength = postLength;
	this.isCurrent = isCurrent;
	this.category = category;
}

// Sample Data
var spark = new SparkLine();

spark.addData(25, new WCL('http://yahoo.com',250,0,'code'));
spark.addData(30, new WCL('http://yahoo.com',50,0,'code'));
spark.addData(32, new WCL('http://yahoo.com',50,0,'code'));
spark.addData(40, new WCL('http://yahoo.com',300,1,'code'));
spark.addData(41, new WCL('http://yahoo.com',310,0,'code'));
spark.addData(47, new WCL('http://yahoo.com',300,0,'code'));

Sorry if this code is bad or broke, I just spit it out as a baseline. If you’ve got a better working model, stick it in the comments for all to see.

I know some of you drawing API guys are drolling over this :) Any takers on this challenge? If so, I think I can generate this data in a few places already. Ray Camden, if you’re seeing this, I can see a plug-in for BlogCFC that does this quite easily.

Everyone, except you real younguns, probably remembers buying music in some tangible format (vinyl, 8-track, cassette, or CD). A common practice, then and now, was for the best information to make it to the front, the A-Side. Other music, many times music that the musician, not the label, wanted, is placed on the flip side, B-Side.

Perhaps a common misconception of the B-Side is that it’s “riddled with crap”. Fortunately, I’ve heard many a B-Side that’s good if not better than the A. Jimmie recently got me thinking about this as applies to blogging when he mentioned a photoblogger than was sorting his posts this way.

My first reaction to the notion was good, honestly. I really liked the idea that there was a place for overflow. It wasn’t until last night, as we finished up some plans for the launch of a new blog (sorry can’t tell more until next week), that I realized how much I could use one myself.

SocialTwister has never really been a personal blog. I see what I do here as part of work, but it’s an enjoyable part (sometimes more than others). I tend to have a policy of posting only once a day. I do this to ensure that I give each post enough consideration and thought. My schedule is just too busy to write more often and I like to do my best once a day. Subsequent posts in the same day would be little quickies and against my goal.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with posting lots of times a day, it’s in the DNA of bloggers. I get the urge many times to just throw stuff up, but I won’t. I need a B-Side. If I had a B-Side, I would be able to be looser with my policy. I could post the meaty piece here and then lots of other things over there. Next week, I’ll be starting that process.

I’m curious how you’re all dealing with your content. Do you simply have different categories that you post to for filtering purposes (the pegboard approach)? Do you have on dumping category (the kitchen draw approach)? Do you have multiple blogs (the B-Side approach)? Do you just not say anything at all that’s out of character?

If you’ve got a B-Side, can you provide links to both of your identities for some comparison?

Yesterday I touched on the upcoming Microsoft LCS and its possible opportunity in the corporate IM marketplace. A second article has come to my attention that attempts to surface some of the sludge from the murky depths of corporate infrastructure.

I don’t know how many people are working from deep within a cubicle these days, but the heavy hand of Big Brother may be coming down on your shoulder soon. News.com has the report:

According to the ePolicy-AMA survey, 60 percent of U.S. companies now use software to monitor incoming and outgoing external e-mail, while 27 percent of employers use software to track internal e-mail between employees. By contrast, employers have been relatively slow to monitor instant messaging, with just 10 percent of companies surveyed indicating they have taken steps to listen in on desktop chat.

“Employers think IM is an emerging technology and they don’t have to monitor it yet,” Flynn said. “But if they have employees in their 20s, chances are (those employees) probably have been using IM since high school and view it as old technology. And if a company doesn’t provide enterprise IM, (workers will) probably go out on the Internet and download a free version.”

Source: “Mind those IMs–your cubicle’s walls have eyes”, News.com

Clearly there are some large issues at stake here and it’s going to take a considerable amount of examination and concession to reach a set of guidelines that keep both sides happy (I think at least). Is your company monitoring your IM conversations? Do you have guidelines you can share? Would this be a major issue for you as you considered a new job?

I thought everyone was saying corporate IM was dead ;) OK. Probably not. Microsoft has been working for some time on its Live Communications Server (LCS). I’m still not sure why this will succeed where others have failed (aside from the shear girth of the gorilla), but here’s what News.com had to say:

The Redmond, Wash., company said Tuesday that its Live Communications Server 2005 software will let companies encrypt their instant-messaging communications internally and link IM systems between companies so that suppliers and other business partners can share secure IM connections.

Additionally, Live Communications Server, or LCS, will include an option for letting companies link to public instant-messaging networks from Microsoft, America Online and Yahoo, so that employees can chat with users on the Big Three IM services.

Source: News.com, “Microsoft logs on to secure corporate IM”

I think one of the key features is the private-public interface. There have been many studies done that show that even in the Enterprise, public IM is king. Providing bridges makes sure people are interested in setting up alternative methods of contact. This is a much more comfortable route than the often used “Corporate IM Cockblock” (you know, the one where the Network Admin filteres all traffic leaving you with zero options).

Are you using an Enterprise IM system at work? Is it any good? What do you like about it? What do you despise?

The next president will be elected, or something resembling that, into office in about a week. We’ve seen a tremendous growth in the use of blogging, the “citizens’ media”, by not only those following the news and efforts of the candidates but also from the campaigns themselves.

The Kerry-Edwards team wins hands-down in their use of blogging and technology (at least in my opinion). This could be a simple admittance that their likely voters are usually connected and in touch with their Internet selves. Of course, it could just be plain, old-fashioned common-sense that there’s tons of people that care about things reading blogs and it’s a great medium to take advantage of.

This leads me to ask one thing, “Should we expect a blog.whitehouse.gov?” In many ways, I think of blogging as RSS’s greatest ally. The reality is that, if you wanted to, you could think of blogging as RSS’s preferred presentation format - as opposed to thinking of RSS as an output of the blogging experience.

Now, put that opinion aside. How much more active would you be with your local government if, say, you could get a feed (hopefully distilled by one or more reliable sources, of the daily/weekly/monthly proceedings and open issues relating to certain topics (which you’ve designated). I’ve often felt that civic responsibility is realistically too much responsibility. How a Senator stands to hold an opinion on every subject matter requiring legislation across a state baffles me. I can, however, quite easily see how my role as a parent might influence my interest in child care issues. If more of the people that are changed by legislation take part, we divide the “responsibility” workload and, logically (though that’s not enough of a test) we get better results across the board.

So what’s the solution really? I have no idea. I was thinking that it would be cool to have thousands of streams flowing from the government. These need not be confidential in any manner, but open enough that I can get a grasp on the new information as it is made available. If it’s hard for a Senator that endures it “daily” how much harder is it for us to get it in huge globs?

Food for thought.

This is really not on topic at all, except that it highlights the strange new circumstances Social Networking provides. Yesterday I heard about the tragic events surrounding Victoria Snelgrove’s death in the Fenway Park area. Apparently,the 21-year old was hit in the eye and died from the injury while celebrating after the Red Socks victory. This is not the first time riots have broken out from a sporting victory

I was talking to Jimmie last night about how strange it was to me that these things were happening. Today, I got another link from someone relating to this Red Sox victory, and I gotta tell you I am beyond words (not to mention laughter). Here they are:

F*** my wife for red sox tickets. - mw4m - 33

if anyone is willing to give up 2 red sox world series tickets, game 1 or 2, i will let you fuck my wife. she: 27, blond, blue, nice boobs, tight. serious only please this is no joke

What are you willing to do for two pressbox seats at the series? - m4w - 27

I’m a PR officer for Major League Baseball, and I’m very connected to say the least. I’ve got my tickets to the series, but I’ve also got the ability to put two people in a pressbox in either game 1 or 2. You would be sitting with a group of 10-15 VIP’s, mostly family members of the team owners. I’ve sat with this type of group before, and they tend to keep to themselves, so you won’t have to explain how you got your seats. They will just assume that you’re someone important and leave you alone. It would be helpful to dress nicely though, to make sure you don’t look too out of place.

If you’re a woman (or two women, even better!) between 18 and oh, 35, attractive and well-built, send me an e-mail and pictures of yourself to be considered. Tell me what you would be willing to do for these seats. The best proposal wins!

I have a Bleacher seat for you… - m4m - 28

…If you are a straight married man willing to do a self-dildo show for my brothers bachelor party while 10-15 men masturbate on you. Party will be video taped so don’t be shy. All the men are straight but enjoy watching homosexual shows. Party will be Saturday night and we will all go to the game together on sunday! Depending on the success of the show we may pay for beer and hot dogs at the game. Please send photo.

I came across Judith Meskill’s recent post about BioJack, a new Wiki for biographical information. I’ve got to say I like the underlying principles but the implementation scares the heck out of me. Also, in terms of full disclosure, I’m building something that is in the same space though fundamentally different. First, here’s how the site describes itself:

…For the past couple of years, social networks like Friendster, LinkedIn and Orkut have been in the limelight of media attention as it draws Netizens into an evolving model of the World Wide Web as a network of people. Using these services, any Netizen can create a profile containing personal information and share it with friends and the public.

While the adoption of these services have been rapid, with some achieving a million users within a few months, consolidation of user profiles and networks is a growing concern. An individual’s information is scattered around in siloes, stored in locked profiles in various social networks, while others are recorded in blogs. Attempts to unify these siloed information have brought about the birth of standards such as FOAF, but the adoption of such standards by the major services have been slow.

So far, I can’t agree more. I’ve dedicated many a post here that discusses the failures of SNS 1.0 in creating a lasting imprint of the humanity of people and their relationships. I’ll certainly agree that there are too many silos of information that not only overlap but also impede the portrayal of my digital self.

Then the premise of BioJack, in my opinion, takes a turn for the worst:

The intention to create a central database of personal data has led to the creation of Biojack, a Wiki for biographical information. Built on top of MediaWiki, the same engine that runs Wikipedia, the largest encyclopedia on the Net, Biojack allows any Netizen to add or edit biographical entries of themselves or other individuals, such as history figures, contemporary newsmakers or celebrities.

Biojack’s founder, Jason Banico, believes that wiki is the best model for indexing the social web. No standard profile format can capture the richness of an individual. The flexibility of a wiki can allow one to write biographical articles in prose, a list of profile entries, a collection of
links to blogs, social network profiles, FOAF files, genealogy site entries, photo albums and many others. Its flexibility will also allow it to be equally useful to a researcher in need of biographical information or to a blogger who would like to have a personal repository of profile links.

Leaving aside my general dislike for Wiki as an end-user content management model, I think this is the last place I want my information. Let’s look at some of the key issues I see at play here:

• It’s Public - If the complaint about Friendster and other sites was that they were too public, then a wiki-based version is probably the most extreme perversion of that. Most social networking services have a level of authentication that’s MANDATED. The more secure ones have controls for locking the general community out of a viewing pool. Wiki does not natively afford us this (at least none that I have ever seen).

• It’s Insecure - Hanging on the tail of that last point. There’s not a great sense of ownership. Since anyone can come and create my page for me, add whatever content they want to provide, and at the same time possibly slander the hell out of me. I call this social graffiti.

• It’s Not Granular - I’ve complained many a time that SNS 1.0 fails because of its inherent needs to index us. I think a free-form text dump fails in the other direction. Keyword searching seems to become the main method for finding people. I’ll not that, however, for the purpose of serving as a “biography” this is not such an issue.

• It’s Doubly A Burden - Having to manage an online identity across an ever-growing array of sites is certainly annoying and only serves to get worst over time. On some level, I am sure the notion is that with a wiki identity, anyone can update your records so you don’t have to (hence saving time). Of course, these aren’t facts we’re necessarily updating now are they. If people have personal space, then our identities have personal valences. These various valence levels serve to protect our often fragile egos from attack and ridicule. In English, we don’t want everyone to know everything right away and, when we do want to share, we almost always prefer to have control of that presentation. Now I have to police my profiles and my biography.

• It’s Not Scalable - So “pages” are people in a Wiki. This means that this page is mine, that is until the other Gregory Narain’s come along and want their space. Or, consider the worst case, where someone adds to my profile thinking I am someone they know — but I am not that person. So how is this mediated? Who knows.

Well those are just my gripes off the top of my head :). I still admire the project, but I wouldn’t want my info in it. I think it makes sense from the point of view of “encyclopedia” but since the creator brought Friendster and the like into the use case, I felt it important to discuss it from that point of view.

That being said, it will take me about an hour to generate a BioJack page for any user of the SparkCard if there was a demand for such a thing. One more hour, and I can import your BioJack profile into the SparkCard where you can regain control of things and secure your identity.

After this review, though, I doubt Jason Banico is gonna want to have much to do with me (though I hope he can address my concerns). Oh well, what can I do. I can’t tell a lie (on this blog anyway).

There’s been some speculation as of late that Google is scheduled to launch and IM program on their own. I’ve got a few thoughts on the matter:

• Jabber-based - Any incarnation of an IM from Google, in my opinion, would have to be based on an open standard such as Jabber. In the long term, I think Jabber is the protocol of choice for IM and we can expect a great deal of growth in this area.

• Desktop / Web Client - Google is dead set on moving into the desktop space. I doubt, however, that they’ll barrel past their web roots. The heritage has established a trackrecord for API-based development which affords both deployment platforms.

• Tight Integration - Google has had the benefit of watching Yahoo! and the like develop their IM strategies in public. What works, what doesn’t, and what’s needed are all still apparent and we can trust this team to come to the rescue in a big way. I’d expect a very minimalist tool, but that will afford better integration with Google Desktop Search, the Google Toolbar, and who knows what else.

• Socially Networked - There’s no doubt Google will try to tie in their Orkut property and Google Personalized Search into this potential application. IM is a wonderful playground for making new connections. ICQ and AIM have made efforts, but in my opinion still dropped the ball as this is concerned. There’s still room for a newcomer to encourage NEW relationships and community.

So some of the big questions that remain are:

• Will this beast be another AdWords-driven monster?
• Do I want another IM client?
• Will you drink the Kool Aid and install it?

For anyone that has been, anxiously, awaiting the formalized spamming of your cell phone, get ready. OK. It’s (probably) not that bad.

Interspot is rolling out a new system that allows for interactive web-based banner ads that push a variety of coupons out to your mobile phone. As their marketing site claims:

The InterSpot Campaign Manager is an advanced software suite that enables you to configure and report on your outgoing messages. These messages can be changed on the fly during the campaign. InterSMS banners allow the reader to initiate an immediate response. Conventional banners typically use a landing page. This transition often breaks the sales process and looses the readers attention.

Source: Interspot Web Site

The system uses Flash for the front-end solution and, guessing, an SMS gateway on the server. I am still a bit curious why this method of transfer is sensible. The primary use case that I can see is for in-store promotions. The idea being that a retailer might push to you a special coupon that can be used in a retail store (imagine that a short code is sent that serves as a coupon).

What uses do you see this having? Would you ever opt into this?

Jimmie and I seem to cover a lot of ground while consuming beer. The last few weeks we’ve been exploring a wide range of issues relating to social networking.

Last week, I saw him tinkering and next thing I know he was importing his MP3 files directly into an MT install. The interesting thing about this was that by using some simple categorization, it was possible to organize your music by genre, band, and date “acquired”. On the tail end of that discussion, I mentioned we should post the code up but we hesitated - fearing potential ramifications.

Lucky for us, MusicMobs is more daring. They’ve launched, as they call it, “a social network for music fans that allows you to share your listening habits and discover new music”. Here’s my 3 step distillation:

1. Get a Mac and install the client so it can slurp up your iTunes file (it works on Windows but it’s more work and requires the web)
2. Go to the site and check out what you’ve accomplished
3. Scavenge around and find people that like the music you like and that match your musical tastes

It’s very interesting and quite automatic, which is the most compelling feature in my opinion. I highly recommend looking into it.