Tufte x jQuery = awesome

September 10, 2008 10:53 PM

Craig Mod, who you may remember was the developer of geographic news attention index buzztracker.org, has developed a new interface to the 2008 election: Everymoment Now.

In short, Everymoment Now is tracking hundreds of news sources on the election and is filtering the news to provide a view of the news that you might not otherwise have. You can see whether Obama or McCain had more news coverage on which day, the popularity trends with both Obama and McCain in the news, which key words were popular and the trends for the popularity of those keywords, and more. You even get cool jQuery-driven sparklines for keyword popularity trends.

posted by gen (8 comments total)

I know there's a lot Craig wants to add to the site- it's not nearly done. If you have any suggestions on features he should add or constructive criticism, please post it here and he'll check it out when he has time.
posted by gen at 11:08 PM on September 10, 2008

The number of articles about the candidates, while likely corresponding to the conventions of the respective parties, are also quite similar to what is happening in the polls.

Obama ended August with a large lead, and McCain has taken the lead back in the past week. It has evened out somewhat, but it will be interesting to compare this graph with the polls from here on out.
posted by clearly at 11:22 PM on September 10, 2008

Cool stuff. I love visualizations like this.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:27 PM on September 10, 2008

What a beautiful website. A clean page, a simple, powerful graph; beautiful typography; and subtle use of color (though I wouldn't have picked that red).

I also thought hitotoki was beautiful. I'm a big fan, Craig!

As for functionality, it would be nice to be able to plot any two keywords against each other. I can't help but wonder if this is different enough from Google Trends. The biggest difference I see is the listing of news stories from the particular day I've selected. This is a great look at a snapshot of the news media on a given day, but I think it would be really valuable to also have a look at how one story progresses through time:

E.g. a page listing predictions leading up to the DNC, on-the-scene reports, and then post-convention analyses. Perhaps also graphing the rise and fall of top keywords along that timeline.
posted by Grimp0teuthis at 11:56 PM on September 10, 2008

Truly Best of the Web. Flagged as awesome.
posted by DreamerFi at 3:22 AM on September 11, 2008

It's about a MeFi post about an election and yet it's not wild speculation, droning opinion pieces, or shrill jingoism. I'm confused.
posted by camcgee at 8:39 AM on September 11, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

McCain's recent increase in coverage probably has more to do with his getting the last word convention-wise, and, you know, what's-her-name's stylish eyeglasses.

This is pretty neat.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:00 PM on September 11, 2008

(Of course, this is also pretty neat.)
posted by Sys Rq at 12:09 PM on September 11, 2008