RSS 2.0
I guess I’m a sucker for graphs and charts. Especially when they’re automated, saving me the trouble of doing them by hand.
Not that I could even attempt to hard-code the output that comes out of the utilitarian-named Websites as Graphs. You plug in a site’s URL, and a Java-generated tree-graph takes shape before your eyes, with interconnected colored dots representing the HTML elements that make up that particular website.
Shown here is the graph result for this blog. It took a heckuva long time to form, and even after five minutes, it didn’t quite stop gestating — that topmost cluster of blue/orange/green (standing for hyperlinks/linebreaks and blockquotes/DIV tags, according to the graph legend) seemed to keep pulsing at its center. Shows you how long this site’s long tail is, and my general formatting tendencies when it comes to hypertextual writing.
For comparison’s sake, I plugged in the URL of a single-page, largely unadorned website. Note the contrast: Only 11 dots for that one, with only four short branches off the central line.
Naturally, I also played around with some big honkin’ sites, along with another blog or two. The results were somewhat surprising. In all cases, the main branches formulate quickly, then additional action takes place in one or two particularly robust areas, reflecting more dynamic sections of that site. Try your own and see what sprouts.
Not sure how insightful this really is, but it’s a few minutes of Web-gawking fun.
(Via Weblog Tools Collection)
you know this has absolutely zilch to do with the long tail, right?
that’s just some sarcasm i’m not getting, right?
Comment by adam — 06/03/2006 @ 08:22:08 PM
It’s an utterly beautiful concept, but I gave up on it after sixteen minutes of gaping wonderment. My own fault for having seven or eight thousand archive pages, no doubt.
Comment by CGHill — 06/03/2006 @ 09:30:33 PM
CGHill -
it graphs the tags on your front page, not the depth of your site.
Comment by adam — 06/04/2006 @ 08:56:44 AM
Yeah, but you should see my front page.
Comment by CGHill — 06/04/2006 @ 01:44:49 PM
I’d assumed this mapped out the entire website, not just the specific index page of the inputted URL. Thus my reference to the long tail.
I guess that’s not the case. Giving the treatment to MySpace.com yields a relatively modest graph, instead of the near-infinite branching if it tracked down every user subpage. I’m surprised this blog’s graph came out so dense, though; I didn’t think there was that much markup on the index page, even with the typical number of posts at any given time.
As such, the name of the applet is a bit misleading — instead of “Websites as Graphs”, it should be called “Webpage as Graph”, since that’s where it’s limiting the scan.
It’s still fun to look at, though.
Comment by CT — 06/04/2006 @ 03:24:48 PM
I did my blog about a week ago and thought the graph was interesting, but not enough to blog about.
After seeing your output I compared it with mine and thought yours was ‘prettier’ so I wondered if I put my site in again what would happen…
It looks about the same as the previous week, but it organized itself a bit differently.
I haven’t put both graphs up on my blog but I liked my 2nd one better so I put that one up, if you’re at all curious/interested.
Weekend’s over now so hope you have a wonderful Monday!
Comment by Richard Harlos — 06/04/2006 @ 11:00:30 PM
Finally a way for my blog to reach more Laser Floyd enthusiasts.
Heck - the graph was pretty cool sober.
Comment by Joel — 06/04/2006 @ 11:21:01 PM
[…] From the man that brought us Websites as Graphs, the code-based web art sweeping the blogosphere (I found it at PopStat), it’s One Thousand Paintings. And it’s genius. […]
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