Interesting Dataset – PaperScape:
Despite my life being full of papers which I read and reference, I would never think to do data visualization about them. I sort of think of papers being independent of geography or context – but they aren’t! The reason why this data set is so interesting is because it reminds me that papers were written by real people in the real world.

Provocative – Exxon Secrets:
I think that this is a very provocative data visualization. The data set is so interesting – and I’m willing to bet the exxon guys hate having this information so easily digestible. What I love about this is that it takes the complicated relationships between money and power and breaks them down into easy to look at visualizations. Not as sexy as the facebook friendship visualizer below, but it definitely is more informative and edgy.

Well-Crafted – Visualizing Facebook Friendships:

The colors and transparencies chosen for so many datapoints work very elegantly with one another. It is a simple geographic mapping of data points, but the curves are elegant, and the colors are wonderful. The shapes that are formed are mesmerizing. Though it isn’t interactive, I could stare at this data visualization for a long time.