This document provides an overview of the history and techniques of data visualization and tagging. It discusses early examples of data visualization from the 15th century onward and the development of tagging systems on the internet from the 1990s involving user-generated metadata for images, videos and web pages. The document also examines critiques of tagging approaches, such as the potential for messy and inaccurate user-generated metadata, and explores methods for analyzing and comparing tag clouds and textual data.

1. data visualization:
clouding
anne helmond & sabine niederer
doing digital methods, rmes workshop, 28 june 2011

2. data visualization
the science of visual representation of “data”,
defined as information which has been abstracted
in some schematic form, including attributes or
variables for the units of information. (2009:1)
michael friendly

3. data visualization
1482: ptolemy's world map

4. data visualization
1611: scheiner's “tres epistolae”

5. data visualization
1782: de fourcroy “tableau poleometrique”

6. data visualization
1805: playfair

7. data visualization
1836: parent-duchatelet

8. data visualization
1837: harness

9. data visualization
1869: minard

10. data visualization
1873: loua’s scalogram

11. data visualization
1991: schneiderman

12. direct visualization
data is reorganized into a new visual
representation that preserves its original form
manovich 2010

13. data visualization
a weighted list
1992

14. history of the tag cloud
1995

15. history of the tag cloud
1997-2003

16. history of the tag cloud
2004

17. tag cloud de nition
A tag cloud (word cloud, or weighted list in visual
design) is a visual representation for text data,
typically used to depict keyword metadata (tags)
on websites, or to visualize free form text.
wikipedia

18. tag
In online computer systems terminology, a tag is a
non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a
piece of information (such as an internet
bookmark, digital image, or computer le). This
kind of metadata helps describe an item and
allows it to be found again by browsing or
searching. Tags are chosen informally and
personally by the item's creator or by its viewer,
depending on the system.
wikipedia

19. tagging
Tagging systems enable users to add keywords
(i.e., “tags”) to Internet resources (e.g., web pages,
images, videos) without relying on a controlled
vocabulary.
[...] a freely chosen set of keywords (“tags”).
marlow et al 2006

20. folksonomy
A folksonomy is a system of classi cation derived from
the practice and method of collaboratively creating
and managing tags to annotate and categorize
content; this practice is also known as collaborative
tagging, social classi cation, social indexing, and social
tagging. (Wikipedia)
Folksonomy is the result of personal free tagging of
information and objects (anything with a URL) for
one's own retrieval. The tagging is done in a social
environment (usually shared and open to others).
Folksonomy is created from the act of tagging by the
person consuming the information. (Vander Wal 2007)

21. types of tag clouds

22. types of tag clouds
content

23. types of tag clouds
ordered

24. types of tag clouds
un-ordered

25. types of tag clouds
centered

26. ontological classi cation
Domain to be Organized
√ Domain to be Organized
X
• Small corpus • Large corpus
• Formal categories • No formal categories
• Stable entities • Unstable entities
• Restricted entities • Unrestricted entities
• Clear edges • No clear edges
Participants Participants
• Expert catalogers • Uncoordinated users
• Auth. source of judgment • Amateur users
• Coordinated users • Naive catalogers
• Expert users • No Authority
shirky 2005

27. tagging critiques
messy
amateur
spammy
non-human metadata

28. tag-elese
simons 2008

29. messy

30. fauxonomy
“metadata added with the conscious intent to
confuse or obfuscate,” or to weight them for
spammish reasons. (Jamais Cascio)
cascio 2007

31. non-human metadata

32. extracting value from big data
The strategy of tagging -- free-form labeling,
without regard to categorical constraints -- seems
like a recipe for disaster, but as the Web has shown
us, you can extract a surprising amount of value
from big messy data sets.
shirky 2005

33. compare privacy policies

34. tag exercise 1
Compare privacy policies: Twitter and Facebook
1. Look up privacy policies
2. Copy/paste all text into Wordle
3. Adjust visualizations in Wordle for readability
4. Compare visualizations

35. tag exercise 1
advanced
Compare privacy policies: Twitter and Facebook
1. Look up privacy policies
2. Copy/paste all text into Tagxedo
3. Adjust visualizations in Tagxedo for readability
4. Exclude terms (which ones?)
5. Compare visualizations

36. clouding current events
#glastonbury
27 june 2011

37. tag exercise 2
Clouding a current event: Glastonbury
1. Scrape top 1000 tweets for #Glastonbury using
the Twitterscraper
2. Open le in Excel/OpenOffice
3. Copy/paste text column in Tagxedo
4. Exclude terms (which ones?)
5. Compare visualizations

38. tag exercise 2
advanced
Clouding a current event: Glastonbury on Twitter
and in Google News
1. Use previous instructions for Twitter
2. Enter keyword Glastonbury in Tagxedo
3. Adjust visualizations in Tagxedo for readability
4. Exclude same terms as Twitter
5. Compare visualizations

39. sources
Images
http://web.archive.org/web/20040607054247/http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/
http://web.archive.org/web/20041204231120/http://twiki.tensegrity.net/bin/view/Main/SearchReferralZeitgeist
http://web.archive.org/web/20041122035256/http://twinkler.43things.com/twinkler/
http://www.librarything.com/blogs/thingology/2007/07/fauxonomy/
Artist featured in photos: Tomas Saraceno
Services
http://www.tagxedo.com
http://www.wordle.net
Articles
Friendly, Michael (2009). “Milestones in the history of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visualization.” PDF
Marlow, Cameron, Mor Naaman, danah boyd and Marc Davis (2006). "HT06, Tagging Paper, Taxonomy, Flickr, Academic
Article, ToRead." Proceedings of Hypertext 2006, New York: ACM Press.
Shirky, Clay (2005). “Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags.”
Stevenson, Michael. “Getting things done? Tagging, del.icio.us and procrastination.” http://whateverbutton.com/blog/
index.php/getting-things-done-tagging-delicious-and-procrastination/

40. anne@digitalmethods.net
sabine@digitalmethods.net
kthxbai!
www.digitalmethods.net
artist: tomas saraceno