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For a spectrally lush and visually enticing view on Google’s New’s Aggregator take a gander at Newsmap. Peruse the about section (below) and you’ll probably eke out something about spatial-conceptual rearrangements, irony and bias and patterns.

Right, but what are they getting at, you wonder. The gist: Newsmap is more than just a colorful eye candy; it’s a study in the representation of news. Headlines are juxtapositioned with meaning. While it might not be apparent at first sight, there’s something there. Call it conceptual art, or call it tactical media, Newsmap is both interesting and thought-provoking if you’re ready to submit to a little brain work. The site can be customized for individual countries and topics, so if you prefer your news en Francais, auf Deutsch, or perhaps in both languages if you’re Swiss, simply check your prefs. There’s also a calendar and archive.

“Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator. A treemap visualization algorithm helps display the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator. Treemaps are traditionally space-constrained visualizations of information. Newsmap's objective takes that goal a step further and provides a tool to divide information into quickly recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments in constant change around the globe. Newsmap does not pretend to replace the googlenews aggregator. Its objective is to simply demonstrate visually the relationships between data and the unseen patterns in news media. It is not thought to display an unbiased view of the news; on the contrary, it is thought to ironically accentuate the bias of it.”

Newsmap is certainly interesting visually; the aesthetics beat Google’s by far. The headlines are more easily discerned. It’s also got a certain brain appeal. Those who like Adbusters or Banksy might find the site resonant.

For those who like their news simple, cut and dry, Newsmap presents nothing but puzzles. It’s colorful, but the treemap construction doesn’t make it easy to read the headlines. Is the site simply too pensive? Will it attract a mainstream audience?

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