Visualizing the memescape

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June 4th, 2010

A new visualization tool developed by a graduate student at New York University aims to help web journalists — who must produce highly clickable pop stories with hard-hitting news — reduce the time spent on “fluff” stories by pointing them to topics that will garner substantial traffic.

You can download the tool free here.

It takes a minute to understand the key, but it’s quickly addictive.

The thicker the layer, the greater the popular interest; the lighter the color, the lesser the media saturation. Where a layer appears in the stack does not matter.

Journalists seeking topics of high interest with low media coverage —  editorial “sweet spots — should look for thick, white layers. Or for a cheat sheet list of best bets for coverage, click on the eye in the upper-right corner.

The circles appearing outside of the information stream represents failed stories — those with high media coverage and low interest.

Last modified: June 4, 2010 at 3:42 pm
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