Blog:

While skimming through recent stories tonight on Digg, I stumbled upon an interesting application called Fidg't Visualizer. This Java-based desktop application visualizes a user's social network using Flickr and LastFM tags. More than just a simple data visualization tool, it allows you to interact with the visual elements well and create dynamic relationships.

The Windows version of the application is not working on my machine, but I suspect that it has something to do with the wrong version of the Java virtual machine running on my computer. The authors of the application have clearly indicated that it's in alpha as well. Fortunately, they have made available a movie that demonstrates the application's capabilities. According to the movie, a Flash version will be available at some point.

Visually, the application is quite captivating and the design team is to be commended on coming up with the concept. More significantly, perhaps, the application teases at what will likely be an emerging trend in future rich internet applications: visual systems that communicate and allow for the interaction of complex data sets and meta data.

What makes Flickr so interesting for this type of application is the staggering amount of meta data it's already collecting. Some of this meta data is automatically generated such as the camera type and image settings for a photo as well as user submitted data including tags and GPS coordinates.

As a registered Flickr user, I often find myself frustrated by certain user interfaces such as the album generator. I often think "surely there must be an easier way to not only to create, but to share these photos with friends." With multi-touch technology still in its infancy and just barely around the corner, my first reaction to Fidg't Visualizer was that this would make an excellent example of a multi-touch screen application. In fact, it seems directly or indirectly inspired by Jeff Han's most recent multi-touch demonstration at TED.

If you have any thoughts on this topic, feel free to leave a comment. I finally re-enabled comments this weekend.