Real Time Data Rendering

There seems to have been a flurry of activity in this area over the last 6 months or so and a few of the best examples are listed below - 3 of which come from the Digg Team (in partnership with Stamen Design). Although these methods might not be the clearest way to navigate information there is a definite need for fresh ideas in this area. As the web continues to grow and the amount of information available to us expands we need some method of filtering out what we don't need or, in the case of the Digg examples, a way of seeing information as it becomes available and being able to scan for stories of interest.

3D Real Time Blog Post Rendering
I was sent this link from a colleague, Chris (tempinbox.com), which shows actual blog post activity mapped onto a 3d world. Not sure how useful this would be but it is a really nice visual effect.



Digg BigSpy
News stories being dugg are placed at the top of the screen. Larger stories have more diggs.

DiggStack
DiggStack is amazing. As well as using colour coding and size to represent amount of Diggs the actual users who have digged a story fall from above and land on it to 'Stack' it up. The name of the stroy also appears below.

DiggSwarm
A circle is drawn as new stories are dugg. Diggers swarm around titles and make them grow. Related stories are woven together using lines and it is possible to distinguish between popular and unpopular stories with size and colour.