Nathan at FlowingData has proclaimed his “Five Best Data Visualization Projects” of 2009, and added in two honorable mentions. He picked some good ones like Ben Fry’s Origin of Species visualization, but I disagree with his omission of such greats as the Xkcd Movie Narrative chart, the Billion Dollar Gram, and the Influence of Micheal Jackson.
It was a huge year for data. There’s no denying it. Data is about to explode.
Applications sprung up left and right that help you understand your data – your Web traffic, your finances, and your life. There are now online marketplaces that sell data as files or via API. Data.gov launched to provide the public with usable, machine-readable data on a national scale. State and local governments followed, and data availability expands every day.
At the same time, there are now tons of tools that you can use to visualize your data. It’s not just Excel anymore, and a lot of it is browser-based. Some of the tools even have aesthetics to boot.
What do you think? What would you put in your top 5?
via 5 Best Data Visualization Projects of the Year – 2009 | FlowingData.
