Faceted browsing: FAC.ETIO.US

Yet another faceted browser based on the del.icio.us API. The frames containing facets for selecting and deselecting is questionable, are these facets? What's a facet?

A facet is a group of headings which all define a certain method of classification. That is, a facet is a way in which a resource can be classified; for example, classified by colour, classified by geography, classified by subject, etc.

The facet called 'Organisation' is definitely a group of headings, and they seem to classify a resource in the same way, i.e. it is a set of organisations, not other things. The trouble though with facets is that facets are close to faceted classification, which is a different kind of species, not necessarily related to facets at all. Faceted classification implies facets, but facets do not imply the usage of a faceted classification scheme for classification.

Faceted Classification: In a strict faceted classification model, a resource is classified under one heading from each facet that applies to it. A resource does not have to be classified at all in a given facet, if that facet's method of classification doesn't apply to the resource.

So what we can determine is that fac.etio.us uses facets, but has no faceted classification as a scheme for classification. If that strict model were applied it may not be possible to classify an object with more than one heading from the same facet. If we would consider facets in fac.etio.us being parts of a faceted classification, then a facet would be:

A set of headings in which the assignment of one heading to a resource limits the assignment to that resource of other headings in the set.

This is not the case in fac.etio.us.

Faceted browsing: DIREC.TOR

You should know that I prefer navigating over searching in many cases, recognising is just so much easier than remembering. Looking at this tool using del.icio.us' API makes me wonder why the developer chose to use different colours for each tag selected but didn't follow that design decision throughout other parts of the interface... xanadu turned purple all over the place but in the selection box? Why?

Swivel: a YouTube for Data

Swivel will soon offer a kind of functionality that will revolutionize the usage of data on websites. The kind of data comparison they offer in a 'YouTube'-fashion is currently only possible using portal tools with elaborate integration technology combined with business intelligence tooling to be able to compare data and derive conclusions. I can't wait to try it! TechCrunch announced it today:

Swivel co-founders Dmitry Dimov and Brian Mulloy start off by describing their company as “YouTube for Data.” That’s a good start for someone trying to understand it, because the site allows users to upload data - any data - and display it to other users visually. The number of page views your website generates. Or a stock price over time. Weather data. Commodity prices. The number of Bald Eagles in Washington state. Whatever. Uploaded data can be rated, commented and bookmarked by other users, helping to sort the interesting (and accurate) wheat from the chaff. And graphs of data can be embedded into websites. So it is in fact a bit like a YouTube for Data.

But then the real fun begins. You and other users can then compare that data to other data sets to find possible correlation (or lack thereof). Compare gas prices to presidential approval ratings or UFO sightings to iPod sales. Track your page views against weather reports in Silicon Valley. See if something interesting occurs. And better yet, Swivel will be automatically comparing your data to other data sets in the background, suggesting possible correlations to you that you may never have noticed.

Swivel is putting significant computing power behind the scenes to run the data analysis. “We use farms of powerful computers and algorithms at the Swivel data centers to transform a lonely grid of numbers and letters into hundreds - sometimes thousands - of graphs that can be explored and compared with any other public data in Swivel.”

Not all data will be public. The companies business model is to provide the service for free for public data, and charge a fee for data that is kept private. Private data can still be compared by the owner to public data sets. Look for Swivel to launch later this week after a year of quiet development. The company is based in San Francisco and is part of Minor Ventures.