zeitgeist visualized

August 16, 2009 7:33 AM

Digg Labs' Arc is a mesmerizing data visualization flash with an ongoing collage of various topics, a sort of animated zeitgeist: How to bake cheeseburger cupcakes l Who is funding the Afghan Taliban? You don’t want to know l The Newest Giraffe: As Cute As He Thinks He Is? l Wascally Wabbits l Stories arrange themselves around the circle as users digg them.
posted by nickyskye (11 comments total)

So... What does the first link have to do with the rest? Just random stories from the arc?
posted by bjrn at 7:46 AM on August 16

Yes, random stories from the arc. Any given second of the arc has a changing, strange juxtaposition of stories as people digg them.
posted by nickyskye at 8:08 AM on August 16

The Taliban story was interesting. But as an 'interface' this isn't horribly useful, since you'll never find that story again, or others like it.

It's more like a screensaver.
posted by rokusan at 8:25 AM on August 16

I like the Arc; never seen it before. Not something I'll use a lot though.
posted by Kickstart70 at 9:07 AM on August 16

It makes for a visually pleasing visualization... and that's about all. These front ends are nice in the manner of an exercise in data representation.... but it's so utterly unusable for finding information. Text just works.

Yay! Text!
posted by PROD_TPSL at 9:08 AM on August 16 [1 favorite]

I've seen the Arc somewhere before—I don't know if it was linked in a mefi comment somewhere or if I picked it up off a visualization blog or something. It's neat, and I like some of the ideas behind it, but I'll agree that it's hard to move past the screensaveryness of it.
posted by cortex at 9:12 AM on August 16

Indeed, it is a screensaver. Handy!
posted by nosila at 9:23 AM on August 16

It would help if whatever I'm trying to look at under my cursor wouldn't skip away when a new story appears.
posted by Evilspork at 9:24 AM on August 16

"Click here for Amateur Ass Gallery" popped up first for me and I thought, "yup, Metafilter knows this exists now."
posted by WolfDaddy at 10:58 AM on August 16

"Click here for Amateur Ass Gallery" popped up first for me.

Holy crap. It knows you. It's a learning system!
posted by rokusan at 6:23 PM on August 16

As much as I love the digg arc and all of the work by the stamen folks... this isn't the freshest of news. I do wish they'd update the screensaver so it didnt lock OSX up tight fairly regularly.
posted by specialk420 at 11:05 PM on August 16