Now that the #L13 tweeting is underway, you’ve likely noticed the related data visualization on our Lucky 13 website  Let me explain the info we’ve presented.

First, consider the two graphics that appear in the content carousel at the top of the page: The pie chart is easy. But did you check out the treemap?  I’ve been a big fan of these since seeing a fantastic visualization of the World Debt Crisis done by David McCandless: The video version is insightful, perhaps shocking, and well worth checking out!  Treemaps are a great way of comparing scale and providing context when exploring data.

Our treemap analyzes the content and sentiment of tweets sent by our #L13 applicants. We can quickly see from our visualization that a surprising number of our tweets are replies, and that the main tweets themselves are links (i.e. the jury’s out!), or happy, funny, and informative. Some applicants, it seems, are tweeting lonely and sad tweets (hmm; people, this is supposed to be a happy process!). We’ll be updating the treemap daily.

Now, about the large visualization tool in the middle of the page:

We don’t really have a name for it yet. (Suggestions are welcome!) It’s a fantastic way to compare hundreds of datapoints with multiple features, and an effective way for applicants (when logged in) to compare some of their twitter metrics to the pack.  Each of the rings of the circle represents a different metric (e.g. # friends, Klout score, etc.) and also shows the scale from high (thick bar) to low (thin bar). Clicking on the person with the highest Klout score, for example, shows the inclusion of few links and (perhaps) surprisingly few friends and followers, given the influence rank. There are many tweets however. (Thanks to the creators of d3.js for this great template.)

We invite your comments and tweets about the #L13 data.  As Alan Partridge would say, let’s keep the chat going.

--  Giles Martin, director of analytics and marketing accountability; Duke of Metrics