I have used Gource plus some custom code of my own to produce an animated visualization of how the debate evolved on this platform.
Posts (about 2,800 so far) are visualized as dots, arranged in a tree: the root is Edgeryders itself, the branches are the categories and the sub-categories. The Internet of Humans category (blue-green), with its sub-categories (like Tell us about you and Events is far and away the largest, but relevant content in other parts of Edgeryders have been brought into the study as well. Sub-branches are topics and the leaves individual posts. Posts can be replies to other posts, so occasionally you can see long chains of posts. Us participants (about 220 so far) are visualized as little drones, that look like board game pawns. They shoot “laser beams” onto the graph to represent the creation of a post. Ethnographic annotations are shown in the same way, but color-coded in yellow.
In the end, the structure of the graph is this: the largest cluster represent the general debate. It is flanked by two more clusters, almost as large: one is the Tell us about you category – mostly our stories and experiences. The other one is the Events category – mostly what came out of our various meetings. Some more Internet-relevant debate lives in other categories, like Campfire (shown in red).
The distribution of the yellow nodes is an indication of “semantic density”, where ethnographers see the most meaning. Of course, the project is not finished! We will update the visualization as we go.
I find it beautiful – collective intelligence in action!
