Visualizing a Socially Connected World

Fresh visualizations for the world of data viz! Using data from our Twitter Census, two data viz enthusiasts have created some sleek visualizations in the past month.

If you want to see Twitter users simply shimmer against a backdrop of a dusky world map, look no further than Ernesto Badillo’s visualization. His map was inspired by the NASA Earth at Night picture. All Twitter users with latitude and longitude coordinates are plotted. With automatic updates from some mobile clients like ÜberTwitter, etchings of some roads, particularly in the U.S., can even be seen. Take a look at Ernesto’s blog post on that page for some details on how he made the visualization.

William Johnson of Chatanooga Data submitted a handful of visualizations, again of Twitter users by location. His visualization provides a way to immediately apprehend the ubiquity of Twitter users with playfully colored dots. These visualizations were made with Tableau.

If you, dear reader, are seeking refuge from the oppressive summer sun in the confines of your cool, well-wired basement, consider making your own viz with data from our massive Twitter scrape and submitting it us. We’ll think you’re awesome.