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?

I’ve been working hard to not only become more active in my civic responsibilities, but also in my professional life. As part of that, I spent the time during the debate doing a little tag-team with my business partner capturing snippets on the debate. I know many of you might be interested, so I am posting links to the individual questions for you to check out, if you’re interested.

1. Friends Say You’re Too Wishy Washy, do you have a reply?
2. Does Bush Sincerely Believe Iraq War Was Justified?
3. Would Kerry Proceed With Same Iraq War Plan As Bush
4. What Is Your Plan To Repair Relations With Other Countries
5. What Would Kerry Do About Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program?
6. No more terrorist attacks since 9/11. What will Kerry do to keep us safe?
7. What Would Kerry Do To Ensure U.S. Safety From Terror Attacks?
8. Medicare
9. How Does Kerry Square Choice of Edwards With Lower Healthcare Costs?
10. You’ve enjoyed a Republican majority in Congress and haven’t vetoed spending. Cut the deficit?
11. Would you be willing to look at camera, and give pledge not to sign legisltation to increase
12. How would you rate yourself as an environmentalist?
13. http://politics.relevanta.com/journal/32
14. Wouldn’t It Be Wise To Use Stem Cells That Don’t Come From Embryos
15. Who would you nominate to the Supreme Court?
16. How Would You Address A Constituent That Wants Assurance That Their Tax Dollars Won’t Go Towards Abortion?

I hope you’ll join in the discussion.

For anyone that’s going to be watching the debate tonight and is looking for a sounding board, feel free to join us at http://politics.relevanta.com for open discussion and chatter.

We’re having a debate party here in NYC and will be blooging in real-time. If you’re an interested party and in NYC leave a comment — maybe we’ll invite you over.

Some time ago I came across a project Adam Curry had developed utilizing RSS Enclosures. At the time, I had only vaguely heard about them and was intrigued by the potential applications for this aspect of the specification.

Last night, I got a tip from Judith Meskill regarding a How-To on Engadget that described a process called Podcasting. As they define it:

To put it simply, a Podcast is an audio file, a MP3, most likely, in talk show format, along with a way to subscribe to the show and have it automatically delivered to your iPod when you plug in to iTunes. The show isn’t live, so you can listen to it whenever you want.

Doc Searls may have said it best: “PODcasting will shift much of our time away from an old medium where we wait for what we might want to hear to a new medium where we choose what we want to hear, when we want to hear it, and how we want to give everybody else the option to listen to it as well.”

To be honest, I don’t own an iPod so the notion of PODcasting has little use to me. However, I am still intrigued by the other applications of this. It seems, and I know of at least one service, that peer-to-peer (social) networking systems could be utilizing this in the not to near future for things like file sharing. On the same note, though a weaker case, is the automatic synchronization of digital photo albums.

Of course, the ugly ghost of RSS security comes to haunt us again. This will be less and less of an issues and standalone applications merge RSS-reading functionality into their offerings and the widespread notion of RSS as a “public syndication” method gives way to thousands of private, dynamic streams blooming.

For anyone that is interested or has an opinion on the Presidential Debate, we’ve launched a new poll on politics.relevanta.com to see what you all think.

In addition, we’ve recently lowered the minimum Level required to post your own articles. In the Relevanta community, you earn levels by rating community content, commenting on it, and contributing your own. Get started now by casting your vote.

The poll is here: http://politics.relevanta.com/poll/1

I have been spending a lot of time considering community and blogging and, more specifically, what leverage is created, if any by an active user base. One of the main areas where I see potential is in fighing blog comment SPAM.

I’m working on a “grid” that summarizes some of the strategies I’ve unearthed and am interested in learning more from anyone that’s been successful in keeping the bastards at bay. A recent post by Paul Scrivens at BusinessLogs.com states the dilemma nicely:

The thing is, this takes work. To everyone reading this entry let me inform you now that if you want a successful site it is going to take work. The problem isn’t the comments, it’s the people who don’t take the time to read comments on their own sites and allow spammers to hit their sites.

Source: BusinessLogs, “Blogging’s Gag Order”

How do you fight spam on your blog?

Today, I am proud to announce the beta release of an exciting new blog aggregator, politics.relevanta.com. To put it in its simplest terms, Relevanta pulls content from blogs across the Internet, then provides the members of our community with the ability to rate the content, the bloggers, and everything in between. Adding to the mix, we also provide an extensive encyclopedia and wiki-like functionality that automatically creates relevant links between information.

For anyone that’s following the US Election, the War on Terror, and politics in general, I hope this will be a destination for you to not only get informed but also to speak your mind. We’re launching in Beta mode, so any feedback is quite welcome (greg.narain at pokkari dot tv).

Since developers always prefer screenshots to press releases, here’s a quick tour. Wall poster here.

Relevanta is Community Driven

	Relevanta Economy Relevanta’s unique economy system rewards based on merit. Rating, commenting, and posting all boost your experience (XP). Daily spending limits (CP) prevents spamming and trolling.
	Rate Everything Relevanta allows our members to determine the value of information and its source. From politicians and their organizations to bloggers and their entries, your vote counts.
	Member Standings Relevanta makes community members’ behavior known. Understanding someone’s position is as simple as reading their posts, comments, and even evaluations.

Relevanta is Research Focused

	Person Encyclopedia Relevanta’s immense person encyclopedia maintains records on over 4,500 individuals. Find work history, related articles, and even contact information on anyone.
	Organization Encyclopedia Relevanta’s vast organization database tracks more than 3,000 organizations. Learn about the relationships between one organization and another and the people that make it all possible.
	Advanced Search Relevanta’s unique search lets you search for the background information you need. Whether searching for a person or organization, results are displayed immediately as you type.

Relevanta is Beyond the Blog

	Auto-Contextualization Relevanta understands the information you provide it and automatically creates connections for you. Dynamic contextual links point to both encyclopedia entries as well as member posts.
	Advanced Sorting Relevanta allows multiple views of its content. Beyond the traditional date view, you can also sort based on popularity (rating) and activity (commentary and more).
	Centralized Comments Relevanta provides a centralized, unbiased location for commentary. Your comments are pushed back to the originating site for completeness.

(more…)

http://nick.typepad.com/blog/2004/09/automatic_feed_.html
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+flip-flop+may+signal+blog+clog/2100-1032_3-5368454.html?tag=nefd.lede

For most blog zealots out there, RSS is the holy grail. Outside of that audience, quickly other areas of the world and culture are starting to see that RSS is a useful medium and applying it in new and interesting methods.

Today, my favorite aggregator, Full As A Goog has pointed out three incarnations of note:

• Ebay Auction RSS - Watchers of ebay can now perform searches against the ebay RSS feeds and get their results served up to them custom [via Topstyle]

• Weather RSS - For those of us that are obsessed with the weather but not so far over the top that we need WeatherBug on the desktop, this RSS service will serve up your daily weather, even with icons [via flex-mx]

• MP3 RSS - Lovers of the white candybar have a new source for music, RSS. Using RSS Enclusures, a little clever scripting by Adam Curry will pull MP3s right out of the RSS feed and load them into your iPod [via flex-mx]