Data Mining: Text Mining, Visualization and Social Media

Google's Leaps and Bounds in Local Search

I recently wrote about the changes observed in Google's local search product on the web over the course of a year. This year, Google has rolled out some changes to their web based experience that indicate some healthy experimentation with the local search UX.

The carousel presentation of local results brings a different dimension to the usual approach which is to integrate the local structured listings into the web page rankings.

A while back, Google converted their details pages for local entities into Google+ pages, and here there have been some design changes which incorporate an innovative approach to integrating the map with the other information about the entity. The map is used in the header as a background which hints and additional detail. The user can then scroll the page up (it is initially presented partially scrolled down) to reveal the full map. This is a nice solution to the problem of maps generally being square while document layout prefers to minimize vertical space.

Finally, on the map itself, Google has incorporated a number of presentation changes including using the map as the canvas with information layered on top (rather than side by side panes) and introducing a carousel at the bottom which, when moused over, shoots out a line to indicate the location mentioned. This latter feature I don't believe will survive - but is an indication of experimentation.

As an observer of Google's web based local search product, it appears that last year they were heads down on getting this fresh and coordinated set of features together.

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An Experiment in Data Driven Digital Art

Many moons ago, I produced a number of images visualizing various aspects of the blogosphere. These pictures proved of interest to a number of people in part due to the notion of visualizing the fundamental network structure of the blogosphere and in part, I hope, due to some amount of aesthetic presentation.

I haven't done much more tinkering in that area excepting a few visualizations of the G+ network and some animated diffusion videos. Recently, however, I started thinking about re-visiting some network visualization projects. As I considered what would be a novel twist I realized that I was just as interested in the visual aspects of the experience as the data aspects and started thinking about producing something with more of an artistic twist. A visual presentation inspired by data rather than an attempt to visualize the data itself.

In deconstructing the aspects of the earlier network graphics I identified a number of key components: the data, the environment (some aspect of the system that influences the presentation), the visual objects (i.e. the shapes, lines etc.) and the presentation surface itself (which might be a simple plane or something more complex like a hyperbolic transformation). All of these elements can be cast as some sort of agency: the data, for example, is an agent which generates information; the visual objects are agents which can transform and present themselves, the environment is a set of objects whose characteristics might interact with the visual objects and so on.

In the video below, I've captured a very rough attempt to bring these thoughts together. Here the data is the simplest stream I could think of : the current time. The time is represented by 3 objects which move around a circle representing seconds, minutes and hours. These objects emit visual objects (circles) which are influenced by an environment of initially random forces that change over time. Clearly this is mostly form with a tiny bit of data, but it acts as a starting point for more complex and richer ideas. Data might modify the visual and environmental aspects of the presentation.

[note that the numbers on the 'hands' of the clock indicate the angle of the hand and are remnants of testing the code.]

DigitalArtProject 2013-07-07 19-57-57-620 from matthew hurst on Vimeo.

 

 

Using Checkin Times to Infer Effective Opening Hours

It's an idea that everyone has had, and I'm sure I'm not reporting something new. Foursquare has a feature that allows you to see their best guess at opening hours based on when people checkin to a business.