The brand new version of your.flowingdata (YFD) is coming soon, and of course, as a FlowingData reader, you get the first peak. Newer readers might not know what I’m talking about. Well, it’s an online application that lets you collect data about yourself via Twitter.
Follow @yfd on Twitter to be the first to try it out when it’s ready.
But wait, let me back up a bit…
Way back in October of last year (2008), I wrote a quick and dirty script – my first Twitter bot – to record my weight and eating habits. The user interface was one page that showed my progress.
That quickly evolved into a simple application that others could use (and some are still using) that could record eating and weight the same way I was. There was also a new tracker to record feelings. It was the birth of YFD so to speak.
In March of this year (2009), I put up a new version with more trackers, an upgraded UI, and a more reliable backend. This version actually got a bit more attention than I expected.
More importantly though, I got a lot of great feedback from all of you – what worked, what didn’t work, and what else would be cool. Thanks for that.
A Sneak Peak
So I took in all that feedback and everything else I learned and went to work on a new version of YFD, which is what I’ve been working on for the past two months on and off.
I won’t go into all the details. I’ll do that when the new version is up, but here are a few screenshots:
As you can see, the new version is all about flexibility and exploration. While there’s still a lot to be done before I’ll be really happy with it, I like where things are headed, and I think you all will like the new features.
Be sure to follow YFD on Twitter to stay up-to-date on when you can start collecting and exploring data about yourself.
Thoughts or suggestions? Please leave them in the comments below.
P.S. If you’re a YFD test user, feel free to continue recording data as you are now. All of your data will be available in the new version.
This is awesome! Can’t wait to check out the new version! :)
The refined visualizations look promising — hope to see more of the interface soon!
Look super.
Is there any chance to see “kg” instead of “lbs”? :)
@Folletto – maybe :). this won’t be an issue in the new version
Sorry to be “that guy” — but it’s one of my pet peeves: “Sneak Peak” is an underhanded summit. “Sneak Peek” is an early look. Flowing Data is a real attention-to-detail organization, so I’d think this would bother you as much as it did me.
That being said, I like the new direction.
thanks, jon. fixed
The new YFD looks so awesome…I’ve mostly used the d yfd drank command to keep track of good wine that I’ve enjoyed throughout the year, and it is shaping up to be a nice reference for me. I look forward to the new release!
Hi Nathan,
I’m not sure if you’ve posted about this before, but if you’d care to share: I’m just curious as to what tools you are using to build YFD (ie. graphing libs, etc).
I think many folks would be interested in that, and also maybe another post on your impression of different graphing/visualization libs, since I’m guessing you’ve worked with many different ones.
@Steve – I wrote a post a while back about what tools I use for visualization. I didn’t use all of them for YFD, but a lot of ’em.
oh, i forgot the link: https://flowingdata.com/2008/10/20/40-essential-tools-and-resources-to-visualize-data/
I’d love to see the guide, but http://your.flowingdata.com/guide/ directs to signing in on TWitter. Where’s the on-line version? Thanks!
matt
Matt, you can read the guide after you login with Twitter.