An aside on word clouds....

[Glen Newton]

As someone who works in the areas of text analysis and information
visualization, I have seen a number of word clouds proudly associated
with blogs, reports and even various importanty govermenty documents.

Here are two articles that fairly accurately describe my view of word clouds:
- 2011, "Word clouds considered harmful"
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/10/word-clouds-considered-harmful/
"...Every time I see a word cloud presented as insight, I die a little
inside..."
- 2005, "Tag clouds are the new mullets", https://www.lytro.com/camera

The former is from the New York Times senior software architect, and
the latter I consider a gem of true foresight! :-)

Enjoy,
Glen


--
-
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/
-

[James McKinney-2]

Second link should be http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0405d.shtml ?

On 2012-12-16, at 4:28 AM, Glen Newton wrote:

As someone who works in the areas of text analysis and information
visualization, I have seen a number of word clouds proudly associated
with blogs, reports and even various importanty govermenty documents.

Here are two articles that fairly accurately describe my view of word clouds:
- 2011, "Word clouds considered harmful"
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/10/word-clouds-considered-harmful/
"...Every time I see a word cloud presented as insight, I die a little
inside..."
- 2005, "Tag clouds are the new mullets", https://www.lytro.com/camera

The former is from the New York Times senior software architect, and
the latter I consider a gem of true foresight! :-)

Enjoy,
Glen


--
-
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/
-
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[Glen Newton]

Yes, apologies.
 The risks of sending multiple emails at 0430.  :-(

-Glen  :-)

On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 12:36 PM, James McKinney <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Second link should be http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0405d.shtml ?
>
> On 2012-12-16, at 4:28 AM, Glen Newton wrote:
>
> As someone who works in the areas of text analysis and information
> visualization, I have seen a number of word clouds proudly associated
> with blogs, reports and even various importanty govermenty documents.
>
> Here are two articles that fairly accurately describe my view of word
> clouds:
> - 2011, "Word clouds considered harmful"
> http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/10/word-clouds-considered-harmful/
> "...Every time I see a word cloud presented as insight, I die a little
> inside..."
> - 2005, "Tag clouds are the new mullets", https://www.lytro.com/camera
>
> The former is from the New York Times senior software architect, and
> the latter I consider a gem of true foresight! :-)
>
> Enjoy,
> Glen
>
>
> --
> -
> http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/
> -
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>
>

--
-
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/
-

[Peder Jakobsen]

On 2012-12-16, at 12:36 PM, James McKinney <[hidden email]> wrote:

Second link should be http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0405d.shtml ?

- 2005, "Tag clouds are the new mullets", https://www.lytro.com/camera

Mullets eh?  Does that mean tag clouds are all business in the front and party in the back?  

I suspect tag clouds came about because software developers like to do fun stuff with their data during off hours, not because its was  thought to be useful.  It was just a "hey mom, look what I can do" thing.  

But there should be room for artistic expression with data, not just useful stuff, no?

Peder