All the rage in visualization of ideas and information need not be overcomplicated, as I realized today. I thought this was a nice and simple visualization of why interconnectedness matters and how it works. As he says himself, I'm not convinced this is totally accurate or if there should be more dimensionality between the layers. Maybe it should be arranged in a less hierarchical way?
He makes an interesting point in the 'voice over' of the visualization, which is that even though we assume it's better to be high up in any hierarchy that's presented to us, there's more engagement and 'love' in the lower levels. As he puts it
Which means more to you personally? Discovering a funny video that's already on the top of the Most Popular page on YouTube? or Finding a funny video on that weird niche blog that none of your friends know about?
To some extent this explains the need and interest in multicultural advertising and creating culture for brands in languages other than English, in channels outside the traditional. By reaching more deeply into slightly less populated realms of media, we engage more deeply.
Lots of interesting thoughts too, insofar as at different levels the size of the dots should be of greater or lesser importance than the big white dots that are at the center now...
This visualization definitely pertains to multicultural advertising.
I think it's funny when people complain about information overload nowadays, especially in the context of the flailing newspaper and magazine industries.
It's not overwhelming amounts of information that is the problem -- it's poor methods of filtration to follow what's truly relevant to people.
As people get better at separating relevant content from noise, there will be even greater opportunities for brands to engage their audience through highly localized news and perhaps "hyper-niche" marketing.
Posted by: Dennis Demori | June 02, 2009 at 02:33 PM