TechCrunch Spotlights Swivel, an Intriguing New Data Visualization Start-up
TechCrunch is spotlighting a start-up called Swivel that describes themselves as "YouTube for Data." My first thought was "wow, that sounds pitchy." However, the site, which will supposedly launch later this week, allows for visual analysis of data sets submitted by users. Of the many start-up ideas I've heard about lately, this is probably the most interesting. Of course, I'll reserve judgment until it's finally released to see how well they execute on the concept.
Data analysis is a critical function for many jobs, whether you're a business analyst or even an engineer striving to improve performance in your application. YouTube, however, is useful for entertainment purposes. If this tool succeeds at making it easier for more people to analyze and collaborate on data visually, this could grow into a disruptive service. Though the readers of TechCrunch tend to be a fervent crowd, judging by the comments, others are excited by and see the potential of this idea as well.
Since this tool is targeted at a community, users could benefit from the brilliant and even accidental creations of others. It could also lead to the exchange of difficult to find data sets such as those related to humanitarian efforts. For example, it might be revealing to plot data sets such as the number of deaths from AIDS in Africa versus dollars contributed from the World Bank to fight this epidemic.
Incidentally and stunningly, according to the recent Economist, AIDS has claimed the lives of over two million people living in Africa in 2005. According to Wikipedia, the population of San Jose is 953,679 and the population of San Francisco is 798,680. Imagine if the population of both these cities just disappeared in a year?
Screenshot from TechCrunch:
