You mightn't have thought of it this way, but ever piece of conversation you make leaves an impression - social or otherwise - on the web. That fragment of information connects and interconnects thousands of times over and over with other people and other conversations directly or indirectly related to it. These can be from a number of things, including usernames, tags or hashtags, links and even based on the sentiments you express on the social web.
There are many tools out there that map these various traces you leave behind you. But not so many that map the cross-connections made between the actual conversations you have on Twitter. That's where social collider becomes interesting. It's an instrument designed to explore the temporal and lateral contexts behind the data we make.
By searching the messages on Twitter by usernames or topics, the social collider visualises your data through time. If a post didn't resonate, it is connected to the next in the stream. If it did, it will create a rhizome of connections.
The best way to see the social collider, then, is as a metaphorical instrument . It's something that people might use it to visually explore cultural memes, to better understand how they are created and how they propagate.
Brian Solis describes this as the "Relevant Net". A concept that best describes what is happening here - measuring the value in your content and conversations and not simply on the basis of influence and relationships.
Social Collider visualizes connectedness not by relationships, but by those who are drawn to content and linked together through common interests based on each topic. Essentially, it’s a conversation map...
Posts resonate, spin off, and horizontally link to users or topics who relate to them, either directly or in terms of their content.
The makers of Social Collider are Karsten Schmidt - concept, design & programming (@toxi) and Sascha Pohflepp - concept, design (@plugimi). Ideally, it's to become one way we might better gain an insight int the conversational Zeitgeist at any given moment.
I think it's a really important tool. It's not just relationships that count - but the quality and the content of your conversation too. I think is key to developing effective social media presence that holds relevance to those people you connect with.
More information here & here.
Get project status updates on Twitter: @socialcollider
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