Web Trend Map 2009

The web’s most important domains, influential people, and their relationships illustrated on a map of the Tokyo subway

Information Architects (aI) has released its annual Web Trend Map, a visualization of the 333 most important Internet domains and the 111 most influential people in the web, their relationships and dominance, set out on a map of the Tokyo subway.

The map depicts each website or company as a Tokyo station that corresponds in buzz, traffic, revenue, and age. The height of a station represents success, while its width indicates the stability of the domain.

The stations lie on 13 subway lines, each line representing a main web sector — applications, publishing, opinions, news, identity, creativity, money, broadcasting, knowledge, advertising, sharing, entertainment, and filtering. Many lines intersect at various stations. This year, there are also people standing at many of the stations who represent the key figures behind each web company.

iA cleverly crowd-sourced the final proofing of this difficult project by soliciting feedback from a beta version of the map posted on their blog one week before it went to print. This preliminary revealing of the map also helped generate buzz virally.

Trend Impact: aI’s map makes it easy to see the strengths of web companies in relationship to each other. Comparing the map with the one from last year allows the viewer to discern shifts in trends, important newcomers, and growth of established players.

Links:

iA Web Trend Map 2009

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