VisWeek 2008 was an interesting set of conferences again. The live-blog is now archived, and here are a few thoughts on blogging a conference. I had a long summary written up, but it was mostly redundant with the live-blog, so it makes more sense to go there. I will write up further things at greater length over the next few weeks.

This was my first experiment with live-blogging, and it was quite interesting. I knew that Twitter's 140-character limit would be too little, but the postings grew a bit longer than I had originally expected. The Microblog box took up most of the visible frontpage, when it was really meant to only fill the top half on most screens. The postings were still fairly superficial, more pointers than descriptions of what the papers were really about.

The posting frequency reflected my level of interest and fatigue: I tend to need a break after three days of conference, which is why postings got sparse on Wednesday. It was also sometimes a challenge to write about the previous paper while listening to the next presentation, and I ended up only talking about one or two per session because of that. There were also some longer sessions that I attended (a workshop and a tutorial) during which I did not post anything.

Writing while listening also didn't give me any time to review and reflect what I was writing. While that may be the way a lot of blogs work, it's certainly not my preferred way of writing (and this is not a blog, after all ;). I had to go back and correct typos and other mistakes a few times.

I only wrote about what was presented at the conference, I did not read the papers. The presentation certainly makes some things look more exciting than they really are, and may even hurt good work. Hadley commented on one entry that he was not excited about a paper I liked, and I've been contacted about another posting I made where I said that I found a paper less than exciting. Putting out my personal impressions opens the door for criticism, and also corrections.

One last thing I'm going to say about this is how easy it was to build the infrastructure for the live-blog using Drupal's Content Construction Kit and Views. i spent the most time tweaking the design of the box and display of the messages and feed. Setting up the new posting type etc. was really easy once I had figured out how to use Views.

If you missed the conference, you can re-live the drama and excitement in the VisWeek 2008 Liveblog Archive. Also, check out Carlos Scheidegger's visualization, etc. and Alark Joshi's Visualization Blog for more coverage.

The glimpses have comments enabled, so feel free to click through if you feel the urge to comment on something I write. Also, let me know how you like the microblog, what I should change, etc. I will keep tweaking this throughout the week.

But don't entirely ignore the stuff below the box, either, there will be an update or two there as well, but obviously most of my time and energy will be spent on other things.

Also check out Carlos Scheidegger's visualization, etc. blog for coverage of Vis sessions.

As promised earlier, I will be live-blogging VisWeek 2008, which will take place next week in Columbus, OH. I will mostly attend InfoVis and VAST, with the odd Vis session and workshop thrown in. The live-blog will appear in a box at the top of the frontpage, and there will be a separate RSS feed for these posts. Coverage should start Sunday (October 19) morning, and there will also be pictures.

This is an experiment, and we'll see how much interest there will be. The idea is stolen from Mr. FlowingData, though in contrast I'm planning on actually following through. ;) I will write about the sessions I attend, papers I find notable, and any insights I think are worth sharing.

The plan is to write about 5-10 postings a day, depending on things I find interesting and how much time I have. I call these "glimpses," as a little play on "tweets." The reason I'm not using Twitter for this is that Twitter is just too limiting for any kind of meaningful comment, and I want to be able to post links without that abomination of tinyURL. I'm also still debating whether to activate comments on those glimpses, because they're not really meant to be full postings (i.e., there won't be a teaser and body, only the body) – but that's another thing I can't do with Twitter.

Having said that, I do use Twitter, and I will tweet things when I don't have my laptop with me, or the information does not seem relevant enough for this site.

I will also take pictures, as I have in the past (like at Vis 2004 and 2005, and a few other venues). I will try to post these quickly to Flickr, and then link there from here. Expect pictures especially from the social events, and perhaps a few taken during the day (I generally do not carry my camera with me all the time, especially because I'm not staying at the conference hotel).

To those of you going to Columbus, I hope to meet many of you! And to the rest: I hope you'll at least get an idea of what you're missing from the liveblog ...

Teaser image from the always brilliant xkcd (used under creative commons).

This site turns two today. There have been frantic periods of posting and periods of silence. There have been times when I thought nobody would read this and times when I had more than 50,000 visitors in a day. Here is a bit of history, some thoughts on what the site has accomplished, and what I am planning for the future.

Here's to the crazy ones.

The idea for the site goes back about five years. I wanted to write about visualization and art, and have a platform for a bit of outside-the-box thinking. In August 2004, I registered the domain. The idea came from another website called equaleyes. It had a nice ring to it, but something was missing. When I came up with "eager eyes," I immediately bought the domain name. I still haven't gotten much feedback on whether it sounds good or dorky or weird, but I like it. In any case, I'm stuck with it.

The misfits.

It took me another two years to get the site running. There were some embarrassing early versions with my custom made CMS and nonsensical articles. I also wanted to build something similar to Many-Eyes and Swivel for some time, until I realized that I simply couldn't do that by myself. Another thing that took forever was finding the right content management system. There are simply too many, and I was very picky about things like URLs, caching, etc. I spent way too much time on this, but I'm happy with my choice now.

The rebels.

What is the mission of this site? I guess to put it in as few words as possible, it is to shake up visualization. While this is still a very young field, it already seems to be set in its ways, and I don't think we should be at that point quite yet. In fact, I hope that this field stays alive and flexible for a long time, so it can grow and change. And I don't think we even begin to understand how visualization even works, let alone how we can use it for the most effective communication, representation, and insight.

The troublemakers.

This is not a blog. When people call this site my blog, I usually argue with them. The goal is to organically build a website over time that will have some more or less well-organized information about visualization methods, basics, applications, etc. Part of it is a blog, yes, but that part is filed under the blog category. The other articles do appear in the feed when they are published, but they are meant to have a much longer lifetime than the usual blog entry. They are also longer, better researched, and take a lot more work to put together.

The round pegs in the square holes.

This site is also about original thought and projects, rather than rehashing or pointing at what other people do. Because, let's face it, that is exactly what most blogs do, including a few visualization blogs. I have no interest in that. Of course, this means that I can't update this site every day. Projects like the ZIPScribble Map, the iTunes Store Visualization, the square pie chart redesign, Presidential Demographics, etc. take time. Plus, I also have a day job.

The ones who see things differently.

This site is about passion. I criticize what others do, and I can be very frank in my criticism. But I scare because I care. I want to get my readers' attention, and I want to point out things that I think are wrong. Some of my statements may be harsh, a bit more sweeping than is called for, and sometimes maybe wrong. But among reasonable adults, I think a frank and open discussion must be possible. And just as I am ready to dole out criticism, I am very receptive of what others have to say about my points of view.

They're not fond of rules.

At times, this site has been a bit of an echo chamber. There is the odd comment, but not a lot of discussions have started. I can't believe that the hundreds of people who visit this site every day all agree with what I am writing here. This is doubly true for my regular visitors who subscribe to the RSS or Atom feed. Why don't you say something? Don't be content with mere consumption! Let me know if you agree or disagree. Tell me what I missed. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me what you think we need to talk about. Let's put all that fancy Web 2.0 technology to work.

And they have no respect for the status quo.

So the goal for the next year will be to make this site more open for discussion, and start a bit more of a conversation. I am not the person for cheap provocation to get discussions going, they have to happen naturally. But by providing the means and perhaps some starting points, I hope to foster more comments and discussions than have happened so far. I have recently changed the settings so comments appear immediately without my approval. That approval step was there after some initial problems with spam, but that is well under control now.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,

I am not planning any radical changes, but there are a few things I want to do. One is a live-microblog from InfoVis and VAST in three weeks. Other things include more interactive visualization applets, more open-source visualization software, and potentially a discussion forum (if the current stream of comments continues). I have also been trying to talk people into contributing articles, but have not been successful so far.

disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.

This is a non-commercial website. I make it a point not to have advertising, not to post affiliate links, and not to sell anything through this site. This is my naïve little contribution to a better world. I share because I care.

About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.

What has the site achieved? It has certainly helped me get recognized. As egotistical as it may seem, it is a great feeling to email an influential, senior InfoVis person to ask for a list of influences and then be told that he or she knows the site and is happy to oblige. I have also been greeted by strangers as "Mr. EagerEyes" at conferences and been told by others that the site has changed their view of visualization. 

Because they change things.

That's a good start, but the next step is to get people to actually act on that, to ask questions and to demand more foundational work in InfoVis, more InfoVis for communication, and a deeper understanding of how it all works. All of that exists in one way or another, but it is not enough. We don't understand our own field, and we need to change that.

Users

You can now create a user on this site by simply providing a user name and email address, or using OpenID. Why would you want to? When posting comments, your name no longer has the "not verified" next to it, you can skip the CAPTCHA, your comment appears immediately (and not when I get around to approving it), and - best of all! - you can use exciting formatting features like bold and italics.

If that's not enough to convince you, being a user also allows you to track responses to postings that you commented on, so you can stay informed what others are saying. Also, this is a bit of a test for me: if there is any interest, I want to add discussion forums to the site for a more open kind of exchange.

To create a user or login, use the login box at the top right. It will move down to a less prominent spot (below the bookmarks, probably) in about a week or so.

Theme

As far as the theme is concerned, I have tried and failed to make it more minimalist. While I'm a big fan of minimalism, I don't seem to be able to do it myself. So I took the opposite route and actually added some ornamentation to the layout. And in staying true to this site's topic, I've taken a hint from Cushion Treemaps to sexy up perceptually distinguish the menu.

I've tested the site in Safari 3.1, FireFox 3, and IE7. Please let me know if there are problems, especially in browsers I have not yet tested.

If you are using Internet Explorer 6, you will probably see images sticking out into the menu bars on the right and there will be a lot of empty space at the top. The latter is actually already a work-around to make the site usable at all in IE6. Resizing the window to make it as wide as possible should help with the sticking-out. I know that some of you might be stuck with IE6 because of corporate policies, but other than that, there is really no excuse for using such an outdated browser. IE6 users are also a very small minority on this site, so I really can't design around its limitations. If there is any way to upgrade your Internet Explorer (or replace it with something else), then by all means do it. 

As always, I am interested in what you think about the new theme, users, plans for discussion forums, the site in general, and anything else.