Fast and slow visualization by Nathan Yau.
Nathan point out:
James Cheshire ponders the difference between fast and slow thinking maps, and the dying breed of the latter.
I wondered in Is That A Graph In Your Cray? if “interactivity” with data is a real requirement.
In the sense of being one that makes sense for any analytical project.
Take the alleged role of “Twitter” in the Arab Spring, a “conclusion” driven by easy and superficial access to data.
Deeper, slower analysis has since established that trade unions had been creating social networks (the traditional kind) for years and so when Twitter went dark, so what? The traditional social networks were in place and far more robust that a technological marvel available mostly to Western reporters.
Of course, the data “analysts” who touted the Twitter conclusion have gone onto other superficial analysis and conclusions, probably in the US election cycle by this point. At least they are not polluting international events for the moment, or perhaps not as much.