InterWebMetroMapThing

[gothwalk]

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

There’s a truly magnificent map of the internet made and posted by Information Architects in Japan. The people who like the modified Tube maps should go look at this.

It fascinates me, though, that they’re actually using the thing:

In house, we use it as a consulting tool. It has helped us exploring, defining and explaining the Internet strategy and positioning of all of our clients since we first introduced it in January. Each website on the map stands as a (more or less) successful paradigm for an interactive brand, design or business model. In order to position yourself, you need to know your place on this map.

That’s a very cool way to approach the idea of positioning.

Comments

[kshandr.livejournal.com]

That's bloody brilliant! Thankyou!

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

Wow.

Livejournal is really small. And on the Chinese line. Is it popular in China? I would have put it on the Russian line if there was one.

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

Oh! I didn't realise it was based on the Tokyo map. I think the first part of our stay was between IMDB and AIGA (whatever that is). Then we were out beyond iA, then by Google, though actually much closer to GMail.
We might even have used livejournal, though maybe it was Go.com.

I like looking at it like that. It's a pity Dublin/Ireland doesn't have a good enough train network to do it. Could maybe use the buses, but nearly every line would be going to the centre.

[ulaire-daidoji.livejournal.com]

Only the cool (and pop-culture, tech savy) 20 + 30 - somethings use LJ ;)

[ulaire-daidoji.livejournal.com]

Very impressive and kinda useful. I prefer XKCD's map though http://xkcd.com/256/

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

But my peer group are using it, therefore everyone who counts is :-)

[loupblanc.livejournal.com]

awsome, I've put a printout of it on the wall next to my desk. ^^

I wonder why LJ is there twice though :?

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I would have expected it to be much bigger. I can't seem to find the 'Latest Posts'/number of users bit that used to be on the homepage, but isn't it something like thirteen million users? Perhaps that's not much in the grand scheme of things.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

One of the approximately three zillion things I love about this map is that it really does show the internet as a series of tubes, just as that elderly US politician claimed.

I wish I had an A3 printer.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

LJ takes effort, y'see. Facebook, MySpace, et and cetera, are very point, click, done kinda things, with no more actual user input than a text message. Because LJ takes that effort to update, it gets fewer people and less attention. alexa.com shows it as having only 20% of the reach of MySpace, and considerably fewer pageviews.

That said, that map is from people in Tokyo, and almost certainly reflects their impressions of the internet, rather than real user numbers. From that point of view, a map from Ireland would have a HUGE bebo.com and a sizable paddypower.com, and in Russia, LJ would loom a lot larger. In Korea, battleNet probably dwarfs everything else...

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing they're hoping people don't, so they can sell the posters. :) I'd love to do concept maps like this, but they're serious effort in a graphics program.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

I see it on the blue line; where else is it?

[loupblanc.livejournal.com]

the pink line on the left going from Adwords to statcounter

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

So it is. How odd. Maybe that's one of the mistakes they're going to fix.

[darskyl.livejournal.com]

Apologies for hijacking your thread, just letting you know about our housewarming on the 4th, hope you and nina can make it, directions is on my LJ.

Hugs
Vic