Information Architects just released their annual Web Trends Map, but it’s not about the subway and URLs this time around. Instead, it focuses on the 140 most influential Twitter users – the Cosmic 140 – based on list volume. Here are your top five:
- Barack Obama (@BarackObama)
- Lady Gaga (@ladygaga)
- CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk)
- Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13)
- Pete Cashmore (@mashable)
How about those American values?
As you can guess from the name, the layout and design revolve around a solar system metaphor. Founders rest in the middle, influential tweeters rest on the outer orbits, and followers are shown with surrounding edges. The longer a person has been a Twitter user, the closer to the middle he, she, or the company appears. The more a person is listed, the larger the white circle, and the more followers, the larger the surrounding transparent circle. Finally, people are placed on the 360° by category (e.g. entertainment or politics).
I like how all of the founders’ first tweets were “just setting up my twttr.” It’s the modern day “Mr. Watson. Come here. I want to see you.” I wonder what the first email was. Probably something about a Nigerian prince and a million dollars.
All in all, with iA’s usual thoughtful design, it’s quite a pretty thing to look at and interesting to examine.
Check out the full-sized PDF, or sexify your wall and grab the high-end print for $99.
I recall an interview with someone who may have been [one of] the creator[s] of email. As I recall, he said he didn’t think he was making history, so he didn’t recall the first email. But it was probably something like “asdf” (i.e. a test message with no content) :-)
hehe, that’s too bad. that should be a lesson to all technology creators. always submit poetic messages :)
I heard that it was “qwertyuiop”.
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If you like nice and clever dataviz project like this one, you should look at : http://lumberjaph.net/blog/index.php/2010/03/25/github-explorer/ an open source community mapping project and here too : http://us.linkfluence.net/insights-2-0/atlas/ (cyberspace atlas by linkfluence)
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