Visualizing blog-mediated relationships
Lilia Efimova has documented the development of her relationship with another blogger, Andrea, in the form of this visualization. It marks the types of communications between each other (blog posts, comments, del.icio.us bookmarks, Skype chats, etc), their timing and direction.
I love this diagram - it reminds me of some of relationships and friendships I've built up over the years that have followed a similar pattern:
- Starts with a blog post I've read and either bookmarked, blogged about or commented on
- If I find other blog posts of interest by the same author, I'll subscribe to their feed, like I did with Lillia a few months ago (I wonder if either Lilia or Andrea subscribe to each others' feeds...and if so, shouldn't these events be marked in the visualizaiton too?)
- Blog posts pointing to each other ensue, comments too
- Then the first email or IM, then Skype chats (in my case some recorded as podcasts), del.icio.us bookmarking (believe it or not relationships exisit via these...) and Flickering
- And then, you never know, a real world meeting! (involving beer or two, usually)