swarm

September 20, 2006 10:23 PM

Swarmshows you what websites people are visiting, right now. Swarm is a graphical map of hundreds of websites, all connecting to each other. It updates itself every second with where people are going and coming from. As sites become more popular, they move towards the center of the swarm.
posted by crunchland (25 comments total)

You may be asking where Swarm gets its data. The answer is in a Firefox extension that you can optionally download. When you download the extension, websites you visit are anonymously sent to Swarm. There is no registration, no email and no personal data ever given to Swarm. You can also turn it on and off easily. The Firefox Extension is the lifeline of Swarm. Please help enrich Swarm and join the community by downloading the extension.
posted by crunchland at 10:24 PM on September 20, 2006

I found it boring.
posted by delmoi at 10:31 PM on September 20, 2006

Swarm shows you what websites people [Firefox users who download obscure proprietary plug ins] are visiting, right now.
posted by jonson at 10:53 PM on September 20, 2006

The 'Preview Not Available' site is getting a lot of hits.
posted by scheptech at 10:59 PM on September 20, 2006

Oh. I suppose you're going to tell me, jonson, that firefox users who download the plug in aren't people?
posted by crunchland at 11:04 PM on September 20, 2006

Neat idea, bad interface. Links? Meh. Even the porn links are boring so far.

However, I did discover that newsfilter.org* is a porn site. Go figure.

*Not going to link it. I recommend not opening it. I loaded it with scripts/ads blocked, and lo it's chock fulla crap.
posted by loquacious at 11:07 PM on September 20, 2006

Sorry, crunchy, but you must not have followed the crunchland method. Double. (New box on the search page acutally works pretty well)
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:11 PM on September 20, 2006

(I wanted to post it when I first saw it too, but it had already been linked, which is why I remembered it.)
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:12 PM on September 20, 2006

first click brought me to "orgyental"... those pornographers certainly are creative with their language.
posted by wumpus at 11:16 PM on September 20, 2006

Oh. I suppose you're going to tell me, jonson, that firefox users who download the plug in aren't people?

If he won't I will. You can't prove an association between an IP address and a human being. I believe that still stands up in a court of law, no? Someone used it or attempted to use it recently against the RIAA, I believe.

Ergo, for all we know that plugin could be some kind of zombie-making metavirus designed to execute a diabolic attempt at world domination. A meaty zombie trojan bot-net if you will, available on call for meaty denial of service attacks.

The quality of links within the swarms I saw supports this argument. They're Google searches based on random drool-short-circuiting-in-keyboard strings and comically haphazard, low speed pawing and slapping.
posted by loquacious at 11:16 PM on September 20, 2006

Erowid's GHB vault and porn right next to one another, eh? I guess we know what kind of people download the swarm plug-in after all.

(Kidding)
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 11:18 PM on September 20, 2006

great concept, bad UI.
posted by dhammond at 11:24 PM on September 20, 2006

Interesting, Stav. I did use the crunchland method, and it didn't come up as a double. Oh well.
posted by crunchland at 11:24 PM on September 20, 2006

You got Erowid? I want new dice. These D20s are obviously malfunctioning.
posted by loquacious at 11:25 PM on September 20, 2006

Hey, one of the sites I pulled up was the Google personalized homepage. Brilliant.
posted by dhammond at 11:27 PM on September 20, 2006

I can see my house from here.
posted by persona non grata at 11:45 PM on September 20, 2006

Firefox users tend to masturbate and read shit news sites - maybe at the same time!
posted by strawberryviagra at 12:49 AM on September 21, 2006

The Google homepage seems to be popular.
posted by aliasless at 1:20 AM on September 21, 2006

My God, it's..full...of...Googles!
posted by paulsc at 1:34 AM on September 21, 2006

Last time I saw this, lots of people were visiting porn sites. I can't be arsed playing with it again.
posted by antifuse at 3:03 AM on September 21, 2006

It's all so small that I can't easily read it. So it shows me nothing. Yikes.
posted by bim at 5:17 AM on September 21, 2006

strawberryviagra writes "Firefox users tend to masturbate and read shit news sites"

What, is Fox News on the list?
posted by clevershark at 6:08 AM on September 21, 2006

Heh. On my quick mouseover, I saw Fark, Fark, My Yahoo!, and MySpace.
posted by danb at 7:02 AM on September 21, 2006

Its a double of my post, here. You used a slightly different address, that's probably why it didn't show.
posted by allkindsoftime at 7:31 AM on September 21, 2006

I'm taking a shower.
posted by kozad at 5:35 PM on September 21, 2006