thought pile - a visualization of ideas

thoughtpile

thoughtpile.org displays ideas in a visually interesting form. much better than most crowdsourcing sites which are usually displayed in the form; title, description, comment, vote up/down. it really is a beautiful and engaging site. and yet the site is a bit of a let down. the ambitious, heady, smart ideas that could impact the world are submitted merely for a chance to win a herman miller embody chair. which is cool an all, but it’d be nice if the ideas were used for something greater - submitted to communities, leaders and organizations that would actually do something with them. I know, I’m an idealist.

there’s a learning curve to using the thoughtpile interface, but still an excellent step forward in the realm of visualization. it reminds me a little bit of burstlabs by gridplane - a site that uses words and circular orbs to navigate audio samples.

overall the visualization of comments, ideas, media, etc will certainly be part of the web and user experiences to come. with the main components being 1) getting users up to speed and not intimidated by these kinds of experiences. 2) creating sites with relevant visualizations that are functionally useful. and 3) adding or generating value to the site’s content.

thoughtpile was created by
http://www.mono-1.com/
and
http://www.freedomandpartners.com/

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Published:
11.24.08 / 4pm
Category:
Branding, Design, Digital, Ideas, Innovation, Interaction Design, Technology, Visualization