We shared some examples, like HopStop (or OnNYTurf, which I prefer), which pulls content from Google maps and the NYC subway system in order to offer a helpful overlay that might make your commute a little easier.
But the mash-up also facilitates some amazing works of art, which reveal truths about ourselves and how we use the Internet -- and present this information in stunning, colorful, and sometimes ineffably beautiful ways.
We Feel Fine, created in 2006 by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar (formerly founder/CEO of Kaltix), draws data from blogs and social networking sites around the world that employ the word "feel" (or "feels," "feeling," etc.). It displays the phrases and images associated with these "feelings" in a variety of ways: "Madness," for example, is a cloud of quivering, multicolored orbs that -- when moused over -- explode to reveal the source text and its author. "Mounds" shows the most commonly expressed feelings at the moment. The application even lets you filter by gender, age, location, and weather!
People age 20-29, for example, seem to be feeling "better." But the #2 feeling is "bad." Feeling "like shit" appears to consistently rank in the top 10, in a wide variety of age groups and locations.
On first glance, this may seem dehumanizing, like it's crunching people's feelings into data; but quite to the contrary, there's something mystifying and deeply moving about scanning the titles -- "lonely / stupid / comfortable / special / sorry / etc" -- that can make us consider individuals so remote from us geographically or in every other imaginable way, and actually feel for them.
I'm curious to learn of other projects like this, sites that employ a similar mash-up technique not merely to make commuting convenient or to facilitate some other practical activity, but to reflect and reveal something new. Please share some links in the comments!
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