What does the internet look like?

May 5, 2007 8:57 AM

I'm looking for interesting visualizations of the internet: traffic patterns, affinity networks, what-have-you for a presentation on "Online Communications." Bonus points for movies, animation, and general coolness.

I direct an organziation that teaches small nonprofits about how to work with the media, do their own PR, and generally communicate with their audiences better. I'm putting together our new "Online Communications" presentation, which will cover everything from "What kind of website do you need?" to "What tools are available for e-newsletters?"

What I'm looking for is maps, graphs, etc. to explain what the interet looks like, and in particular to help me discuss the concept of Network-Centric Advocacy-- basically how technology has made organizing groups of like-minded individuals much easier than it was previously.

What I'd love to find is something like this, only animating connections between web sites as opposed to page elements. Even better would be something like this except showing internet traffic (and yeah, I have no idea how that would actually work, I just know it's purty).

I've done some searching on AskMe and MeFi but haven't found anything exactly right, which makes me think it might not exist. I'm open to whatever you think would work to help explain these concepts, the cooler-looking the better. And so I turn to you AskMe-- what does the internet look like?

posted by hwickline to technology (7 comments total)

CAIDA produces content like this. I don't think they do animations, but they make maps which are fun to look at. Check that, I just looked, they DO have animations. Have fun : )
posted by autojack at 9:10 AM on May 5, 2007

here is a joke version, and here is a not-a-joke visualization from the same artist.
posted by crayolarabbit at 9:36 AM on May 5, 2007

For some older stuff, see here.
posted by zamboni at 9:48 AM on May 5, 2007

visualcomplexity.com
posted by signal at 10:25 AM on May 5, 2007

Avast, I cannot find MeFi on crayola's linked joke map. Be we near the Ocean of Subculture, or the Blogipelago? Yar, my heart tells me an island not too distant from boingboing, yet my ulcerous gut favors the Bay of Trolls.
posted by fleacircus at 11:40 AM on May 5, 2007

What you're asking for is the holy grail of network operators everywhere. The problem (for most organizations) is scale. if you're small enough to have so little traffic that you could model such things in realtime, you probably don't have the money to purchase such a thing. If you're so large that you could pay for such a thing, you have far too much traffic to watch in real-time.

These guys (netqos) are attempting to do just such a thing, but you have to sign up to get their high quality video (I've did it last month and haven't received any spam yet). There's a lower quality, less extensive demo on youtube (found via this info aesthetics blog).
posted by datacenter refugee at 11:40 AM on May 5, 2007

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions so far, and please keep 'em coming.
posted by hwickline at 3:02 PM on May 5, 2007