Google Hacks 2Nd Edition [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 55. Visualize Google News

Watch stories aggregated by Google News unfold
over time, coverage broaden and fade, and hotspots emerge and fade
again into the background .

Newsmap (http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap) is a
whizbang Flash-based treemap representation (http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/treemap/index.shtml)
of the stories flowing through Google News. The Newsmap home page
describes it best:

Treemaps are traditionally space-constrained visualizations of
information. Newsmap's objective takes that goal a
step further and provides a tool to divide information into quickly
recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying
patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments
in constant change around the globe.

Each color-coded band (you'll have to take our word
for its being in color) represents a Google News section: from top to
bottom are World, Nation, Business, Technology, Sports,
Entertainment, and Health. Notice that I've only
selected the first three by checking their associated checkboxes at
the bottom-right. Also notice that I've selected
news only from the U.K. in the Countries tab across the top.

The colors appear in a gradient from brightest
("less than 10 minutes ago") to
darkest ("more than 1 hour ago")
such that the latest stories stand right out.

The more substantial the band and bigger the enclosed headline, the
greater the number of related stories. You can easily spot the
freshest and most covered stories: they're the big,
bright blocks.

Hover your mouse over any story for a brief description drawn from
the primary sourcethe story around which others are
clusteredas chosen by Google News.

There's also a Squarified version (Figure 4-5) that I prefer: more so than with the Standard
version (Figure 4-4), you are able to see the
spread of coverage across all news categories. Switch between the two
layouts by clicking the appropriate Layout button near the
bottom-right.

Newsmap provides a fascinating bird's-eye view of
news as it unfolds on the Web. Here are a couple of my favorite
Newsmap settings:

Select only one news categoryWorld works bestand draw
coverage in from two or three countries. Set the layout to
Squarified. Now take a gander at the headlines and notice how they
differ in title and coverage by country.

Select only one news category and one country from which to draw
sources. Set the layout to Standard. Now, meander back through the
archive (bottom-left) day-by-day or hour-by-hour and watch how the
stories unfold over timebands widen and narrow, hotspots
appear and disappear, and the headline changes right along with the
primary source.