Infographics have played an increasingly visible role in communicating complex analytic data in an easy-to-digest way. Until recently infographics were hand-crafted by graphic designers with a special interest and ability in data communications. Visual.ly has made a name for itself by authoring web-based data visualization applications that can be customized and populated on an individual level.
As Google continues to set the bar for website analytics, Hootsuite, the social media management service, is promoting its ability to create sophisticated visualizations based on data available through the Google Analytics API. In the crowded world of social management and analytics tools, Hootsuite is poised somewhere between a multichannel social publishing platform and social analytics tool. Their recent focus on data visualization shows just how important the analytics part of the business is. While Hootsuite offers a free entry-level service the advanced Google Analytics integration is only available to paid subscribers.
Google Chart Tools is the search giant’s bundling of the Google Chart API and Google Visualization API. These tools create the perfect means for businesses and students to visualize data on websites as well as other types of presentations.
The Twitter API is one of the most popular APIs in our directory. While the most fundamental use of the API is to post a Tweet, developers have been using the API to access and mine the humongous amounts of Twitter data being generated, resulting in 50 Twitter visualizations in our mashups directory alone. These applications mine Tweets to provide services that help users track topics of interest, geolocalized Tweets and even predict flu outbreaks.
Each of Google’s 95 APIs has employees to support it. So, we’re used to seeing tutorials from Googlers about this API or that. Last week the search giant did something different. In a series of posts, Silvano Luciani wrote a series of posts showing how the Google Chart API can help make sense of data from the Google AdSense API.
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the O’Reilly Strata Conference in New York City, and sat in on a very important keynote from Drew Conway and Jake Porway about their project, Data Without Borders.
Data Without Borders is looking to match non-profits in need of data analysis with freelance and pro bono data scientists who can work to help them with data collection, analysis, visualization, or provide decision support.
Telephony platform Twilio is now giving developers more insight into their application activities. Now users of the Twilio Voice API and Twilio SMS API have the option to view usage patterns, thanks to a partnership with GoodData. The dashboard shows the last 90 days of call and text volumes, with the option to explore the data further.
Data displayed on Google Maps are perhaps the most popular types of mashups today. Seeing things on a map helps you better understand, memorize and relate data to where you can physically find them. But is a map visualization suitable also for non-geographical data? Internet conference Web 2.0 created a Points of Control map showing a fantasy landscape of Internet companies, complete with markers and zoom levels.
Chart APIs are useful and popular, and Google knows how to do them well, so they’re continuously adding more features and options for customization to their Visualization API. The Google Code Blog recently highlighted a few of the newest features.
Google has just announced that it’s Visualization API (our API Profile) now supports server-side data requests. In essence, the API now supports an “open-wire” protocol that allows individuals and organizations to create visualizations directly from data on a server.
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