I did what I suspect a lot of people did. I saw this beautiful Facebook visualisation and went “oooh”. My oooh contained just a couple of things:
- Isn’t that pretty
- Facebook is big and global
But I just read this account by Paul Butler, the intern who made the thing. And all of a sudden it took on a whole new dimension. It gets a little technical in places, but you should read it, you’ll view the whole thing as more than just a pretty picture once you have. Go on read it.
All of a sudden you realise that there isn’t a background map here. Everything you see, including the recognisable shapes of countries is created by connections between people.
And once you’ve read Paul’s piece, click and view the high-resolution version of the map and drink it up.
Which is why Russia and China appear to be missing.