The Smug Baldy Speaks

In what amounts to probably the nicest example of corporate support for the spirit of community that pervades the Web 2.0 phenomena, IBM has launched a cool new site called Many Eyes that allows members to upload and visualize datasets from just about anywhere.

I found it very easy to navigate the system and upload some data related to Homicide Rates in the US, as you can see here. In order to create a visualization, you have to first register with IBM. After that, you can upload data, and then create one or more custom visualizations of your data. In addition to the standard plot types (bar, line, pie, and are charts) you can also use bubble plots as well as tag-clouds for free-form text data.

So, go forth my friends, and let slip your inner statistician.