Looking like the sort of fake futuristic technology you’d see in an episode of 24, Tweetping, a stunning new visualisation from French designer Franck Ernewein, highlights the exact location of every tweet on the planet with a bright blue pixel. In real time.
At the bottom of the window, underneath the rapidly changing map, you can view continent-by-continent information including number of tweets, characters, and the last hashtags used. A pie chart also displays the global distribution of tweets by continent.
Unlike other Twitter visualisations, there is no option to pause the action – Tweetping’s visualisation simply grows and develops, revealing as much through beautiful build-ups of light as it does through areas of stark darkness.
China, for example, has the highest concentration of mobile phones on the planet – 1.05bn – yet remains shockingly devoid of blue light-ups. In Africa, which has a not dissimilar level of mobile phone ownership, one presumes it is perhaps poverty and a lack of internet penetration which is keeping its citizens in the dark.
After the visual spectacle wore off however, I found myself craving a deeper understanding of the torrent of data that presents itself when you visit the site. It would be interesting to visualise intercontinent connectivity between tweets, or where trending hashtags are coming from, for example.
That said, any further exploration of this mega data stream would obviously transport you away from the magic of watching social media in real time.
By Henry Taylor
24. Journalist on City University's Interactive MA course. Lacks a sense of smell. Probably showers more than is necessary.