One of the big trends in the web this year appears to be the emergence of data visualization and sharing websites. Swivel launched in December, soon followed by IBM's Many Eyes. Now Data360, which officially launched in October 2006, has undergone a recent facelift and is working to become a place to share data on "important cultural, environmental, social and economic issues."
Is it any coincidence that, after a year or more of development, these three sites officially 'launched' within a month or less of each other ? Or, considering that they're all in beta mode, could it be that when one site launched, the others had to launch to avoid letting anyone get the first-mover advantage? In general, it seems all of these sites could use some work. Data360's sparse graphic design may appeal to more geeky, engineering types as compared to Swivel or Many Eyes, which seem more geared to creating eye candy from data. Since they all are in various states of beta mode, we can expect new options and features to appear in the near future. Stay tuned.
Comments (2)
Jackie,
Thanks for noticing our new home page. I think your characterization of data360 is probably on-target, certainly if you were describing me, although in addition to "geeky, engineering types," we also would like to find readership amongst any individuals who seek objectivity about what is happening in the world. "Clear context about on important cultural, environmental, social and economic issues" is one of our major objectives.
To your point about new features, you're again absolutely right. We'll be adding an easy data upload feature shortly and we also have plans for new dataset types as well.
Best regards,
Tom
p.s. One of these days we'll make that tour happen! Perhaps after our new upload feature becomes available, which I estimate in 45 days.
Posted by Tom Paper | February 28, 2007 7:45 AM
Posted on February 28, 2007 07:45
Not bad. Still a ways from reaching the quality of Swivel, but it's good to see that sharing and visualizing data is becoming more popular. Personally I still like Swivel best, but then I have played with it more than the others, partly cause its the easiest to use.
Did you get a sense of the licensing terms? Swivel uses a CC license, which I kinda like. The data360 TOS is similar in spirit, but I don't think it's a CC license.
Posted by Deepak | March 3, 2007 6:20 PM
Posted on March 3, 2007 18:20