Category Archives: Media

The BBC-o-Gram

March 1, 2010

The BBC-o-Gram

Recent controversy about the budget of the BBC here in the UK made me curious about its spending. Here’s the BBC-o-Gram, a visualization I created for the Guardian Datablog, exploring the costs of running one of the biggest broadcasters in the world.

See the visual. Explore the data.

Do they provide good value?

source: The BBC Annual Report (PDF)
data: in this Google spreadsheet
research: David McCandless, James Key
additional design: Joe Swainson
Also posted in Data Journalism, Guardian Datablog, Infographic, Visual Journalism |
 7 Comments

2012: The End Of The World?

November 11, 2009

2012: The End Of The World? by David McCandless, InformationIsBeautiful.net

A piece exploring the myths around 2012, Mayan Prophecy, geomagnetic reversal, The Long Count, consciousness shifts, Hunab Ku, galactica alignment, the Precession Of The Equinoxes, rogue planet Nibiru, solar storms, pole shifts, timewave zero, the return of Quetzalcoatl and THE END OF THE WORLD December 21st 2012!

Make up your own mind

UPDATE 1 (8 Dec 09): There’s now a Portuguese version of 2012 (thanks Ricardo Vieira) and a French version DEUUUUXMIIIILLEDOUUUUZE (thanks to Olivier!)

Skeptical Sources: Wikipedia, Associated Press, Astronomical Answers: University of Utrecht, The New York Times, John Hoopes on Tribe.Net, Skeptical Inquirer, GSA Bulletin, NASA, Nature

Believer sources: Timewave Zero, 2012: Dire Gnosis, RealitySandwich.com, 2012:TheBook, Calleman.com, Institute For Human Continuity (fake website for 2012 film).

Explore the sources In this Google doc

Also posted in De-Hyping, Environment, Esoteria, Group MInd, Information Design, Movies, Skeptics vs Believers, sci-fi |
 109 Comments

Who Rules The Social Web?

October 2, 2009

Who Rules The Social Web? Gender Balance on social networking sites

Thanks to data gathering by Brian Solis. My data here.

In passing, it’s interesting how Google Ad Planner gives detailed data on every big website online. But not on any of Google’s own sites.

Source: BrianSolis.com, Google Ad Planner.
Data: In this Google doc

Also posted in Data Visualisation, Graph, Infographic, Social Networks, Web, facebook, twitter |
 216 Comments

Great Visualizers: Good Magazine

September 2, 2009

Good Magazine Infographics
Good Magazine is good. It’s a non-profit mag with a powerful eco-sustainability-we-can-do-this-together vibe. And when you subscribe, they give your money to charity!

They’ve been quietly championing infographics and visual information in their ‘Transparency’ section for a few years now. Many of their images are America-centric. But a lot highlight global concerns. Here are some of my favourites.

Read More »

Also posted in Data Visualisation, Environment, Great Visualizers, Infographic, Sustainability, Visual Journalism |
 11 Comments

More Truth About Twitter

August 14, 2009

If The Twitter Community Were 100 People II
Revisited If Twitter Was 100 People with some interesting new data

sources: Sysomos: Inside Twitter, Sysomos: Twitter’s Most Active Users, Pear Analytics Twitter Study
Also posted in Data Journalism, Data Visualisation, De-Hyping, News, Simple, Statistics, Timelines, Web, twitter |
 112 Comments

The Billion Dollar Gram

August 12, 2009

The Billion Dollar Gram

Billions spent on this. Billions spent on that. What does it all look like? Hopefully The Billion Dollar Gram will help.

This image arose out of a frustration with the reporting of billion dollar amounts in the media. That is, they’re reported as self-evident facts, when, in fact, they’re mind-boggling and near incomprehensible without context. But they can start to be understood visually and relatively, IMHO.

(This is one of the first images I created for my book. So a lot of the figures are from 2006/07. I’ve also visually cheated slightly here and there to make everything fit)

I hoping this will be a “living image” that I’ll keep updating all the time. So if you find any interesting, juicy or eye-popping billions, please comment below (with a source). Let’s see how high we can make this image!

source: New York Times, The Guardian, Fortune and others. See this Google doc for all details.
Also posted in Comparison Chart, Data Journalism, Data Visualisation, Economics, InfoVisualisation, Infographic, Political, Treemap, Visual Journalism |
 149 Comments

Patterns in the Group Mind

August 7, 2009

I’ve been playing with Google Insights. It’s a great toy. It measures ‘search intensity’. The number of searches being made for a certain term.

Off the back of the recent timeline of global media scare stories, I got curious about what searches actually look like.

For example, the search “violent video games” reveals a very distinct pattern.

Google Insights search:

Why that distinct pattern? If you add the dates, it clarifies things:

Google Insights search:

Every April and November the issue flares up. Why?

April 20th is the anniversary of the Columbine Massacre. Though dimishing, the echoes of that event still reverberate through the group mind.

Not sure about the November peak? Maybe because Christmas video games are announced?

Read More »

Also posted in Comparison Chart, Data Journalism, De-Hyping, Fun, Graph, Group MInd, Timelines, Visual Journalism |
 34 Comments

Mountains Out Of Molehills

August 4, 2009

Mountains Out Of Molehills

Watch out! A timeline of global media scare stories.

source: Google News | see in hi-res | download an A4 PDF
Also posted in Comparison Chart, Data Journalism, Health, Timelines |
 33 Comments