I was directed towards some fascinating mapping software today and spent a few minutes reading through its methodology and playing with it a bit before stopping, feeling confused and sort of amazed.  For the past several years, We Feel Fine has been indexing blog postings and using a methodology to identify and represent the feelings expressed in various blog postings.   

The sizzle is the visualization interface.  According to the designers, “The interface to this data is a self-organizing particle system, where each particle represents a single feeling posted by a single individual. The particles’ properties – color, size, shape, opacity – indicate the nature of the feeling inside, and any particle can be clicked to reveal the full sentence or photograph it contains.”  

My first impression was that it was sexy as hell, so I began playing with it a bit.  After about fifteen minutes, I realized I was having a bit of trouble really getting into the software.  It almost feels like there is a bit too much to contend with - and I was having trouble manipulating the software to do comparative analysis or external system testing. 

For instance, the data should be available to compare the mood in the US vs. the UK after 9-11 for instance, which would be awfully interesting in my opinion, but I couldn’t figure out how to run that comparison.

At any rate, there is a lot of potential here and the designers have a very artistic flair to their work.  I’d be curious to know what others thought about the interface.

I guess when it comes to software I’m more of a Nintendo guy than an Xbox guy.