Exploring the behavior of social networking.
How it works
Through a combination of data processing interfaces, we aim to visually display the myspace culture and its network connections.
The database that was given to us by the BioMemetics group was essentially a mySQL dump of all the data so far collected. It was then the goal of commenTree to translate this wealth of data into a visual interface using Flash and Actionscript. The most plausible way of extracting the data from mySQL and implanting it into Flash is through the PHP Hypertext Preprocessor.
Users in the commenTree visualization are presented as orbs of different colors representing their gender, blue males and
pink females. Each user has an icon associated with them depicting how much they comment. Less talkative individuals are
shown with one speech bubble, whereas the most talkative have Three.
Comment arcs are drawn between orbs when one user sends another a comment, the text of that comment can be seen scrolling down the side of the visualization so that the entire text body of that comment can be examined along with who is sending and who is receiving. When a orb receives a comment, it is lit brightly so that it can be easilly determined who is currently sending and receiving communication. User's that have accounts but don't send or receive comments (lurkers) have no arcs connected to them. As users cease communicating they fade away creating a visual depth and allowing new communications to be viewed much easier.