Points of Control Map Released!
The internet is a big place, with lots of people and companies trying to carve out territory for themselves. What would it look like if you could visualize the current landscape of the web? Which players are holding dominant positions? Who is making a move into new lands? Blend has teamed up with the great folks at the Web2.0Summit to find out!
After several months of effort and a lot of continent shuffling, we are pleased to announce the launch of the Web2.0Summit Points of Control Map!
This is really a first iteration of the map, with additional functionality to be added in upcoming releases. We hope you enjoy!
Here are a few behind-the-scenes notes:
The team at Blend included and Joe, Nate on the development side. Karla and I did the design and illustration. We worked primarily with John Battelle and Janetti Chon from the web2.0 team. Their vision and broad knowledge of the current state of the web is what really enabled this map to become what it is.
Deciding on the relative size and placement of the companies was a challenge. There are a lot of diverse players. So much so that an apples-to-apples comparison of any one data point seemed to miss the full picture. Instead we took a hybrid approach, considering things like revenue, number of active users, and relative influence. In the end it is all an estimate, but hopefully a reasonably defensible one.
Visually there were a number of influences. We were inspired by old explorers maps, with their vague details and exotic inset illustrations. To help underscore the game-like fun that we were going for, we looked to strategy board games like Risk or Age of Empires. The chiclet icons were obvious game pieces that nod to the web-centric nature of the map. In the end we blended a whimsical hand-drawn style with interactive elements in a way that encourages exploring the state of the web for fun.
Obviously, we are not the first ones to try and visualize the web in some way. Here are a few other interesting takes on things:
Web Trend Map – Both a cool interactive map of the latest trends and a subway map style poster.
2007 Online Communities – How things have changed!
2010 Social Networking Map – A recent “tribute” map in a similar style to the 2007 version above.
This is absolutely amazing! Will you be doing a write up on how you did this and what frameworks you used? I would love to see how it was done. I’ve been trying to come up with a similar idea for integrated science in ecosystems and it would really help to see your process and the underlying structure to see if I have any chance of emulating it.
Dustin
Thanks, Dustin! The core map functionality is built on the Google Maps API http://code.google.com/apis/maps/index.html with a custom tile set applied in place of the real world map. There are also a variety of data-driven features you can also tie into that open up interesting possibilities for layering geo-located data sets.
Nice write-up about the Points of Control Map by John Meyer on Silicon Prairie News: http://spne.ws/8jA