[Sigia-l] Mapping

[Peter Merholz]

> > Another "visualization" tool to put on the scrap heap next to
> > antarcti.ca, ThemeScape, kartoo, and lord knows what else.
>
> You're suggesting that visualization is a bad idea, and I think that
> is a bad idea.

Sigh. Well, you can extrapolate that.

> While information visualization techniques are powerful, they've
> been most successful in relatively narrow, vertical, applications
> where the data is relatively homogenous. For example, the Table Lens
> for spreadsheet data or the PhotoMesa & PhotoFinder tools for
> images.

Yes. Exactly. Which antarcti.ca, ThemeScape, kartoo do NOT do, as you cite
here...

> They have failed in broad, horizontal applications where the
> information being visualized has a lot of "aboutness"
> characteristics and is largely hetergeneous. The tools you cite and
> this new Groxis tool all fall into this space.

Which was my point. Thank you for making it for me.

> I'm curious about Groxis, but not hopeful. This is not because I
> think visualization is a bad idea, only because the problem area
> Groxis is trying to solve is a notoriously difficult one for
> visualization.

I think attempting to visualize semantic knowledge is pretty much a lost
cause. When some company proves me wrong, great. But all these tools seem to
garner big hype, yet inevitably wither and fail. I'd love to see more of a
focus on meaningful attempts to sift, analyze, and present vast bodies of
semantic knowledge (like Flamenco and Endeca).

I guess I'm getting annoyed with how the shiny-designy solutions, which
aren't useful, are getting noticed, while the less pretty solutions, though
actually useful, are by-and-large ignored.

--peter

>
>
>
> --karl
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