Scott Hearts Freebase

This is what is going to fuel the next wave on the web. There are so many publishers on the web, but not everyone does so in a structured manner. With the huge amounts of free data out there it is essential that tools are developed to make it more digestible. Visualization data mining has caught on in a big way because of the increased need to simplify large pools information, and it will continue to grow more useful and prevalent the more structured data that is freely available.

If Freebase produces a addon for browsers similar to what Wikia Search has done, the number of contributions will explode.

Improving Analytics

All the fancy charts and numbers are nice, and with enough time interpreting usage patterns for site visitors can become intuitive; however, I think there is a much better way to visualize visitors’ interactions with your site. I would like to see clicks and navigation visualized and overlayed on an image of your actual site to create a simulated walk through of a visitor or group of visitors’ trip through your website.

The various outcomes of a given group of visitors could be highlighted and broken down by percentage within an image of your actual webpage. The category of visitor being visualized would be indicated off to the side, and you could adjust the grouping criteria being employed. You could then follow each outcome similar to a “choose your own adventure” book. There is also the possibility that you could “play” site visits (or what would represent a typical site visit) and watch how they would occur in real time.

I feel that this form of visualization captures the data in the best way possible, and would optimize interpretation…..I make doodles of this crap while I drink coffee and if anyone is interested I could give them to you.

Update: It appears someone has listened, or has had the same epiphany.