The TouchGraph GoogleBrowser

July 2, 2002 3:14 PM

The TouchGraph GoogleBrowser uses Google's related: links to visualize local maps of the web. Enter www.metafilter.com and watch the spider unfurl its arms. Click on "Show Singles" for more specific pages, or set the "radius" to 10 for more nodes. (Full instructions are here. ) Requires something called the Java Virtual Machine and may be IE-only, but that doesn't matter: my neighbors just called to ask if I was going to keep whooping like that all night.
posted by gleuschk (23 comments total)

Yeah, I was just coming here to mention the Mozilla thing. (I must not have waited long enough the first time.)

Um, what would you like?
posted by gleuschk at 3:51 PM on July 2, 2002

Works in Mozilla? {display of ignorance} I was just going to complain that I couldn't see that there were any compatible downloads {/display, I hope}. Can you advise, Graham?
posted by jokeefe at 3:55 PM on July 2, 2002

Something similar (in Flash), but not nearly as good (neither in graphing nor in results), yet still worth a look.
posted by rex at 3:57 PM on July 2, 2002

I just clicked and played - didn't have to install anything. Sorry, I was just trying to forestall "It don't work for me"'s. Should just have kept my mouth shut.
posted by gleuschk at 3:58 PM on July 2, 2002

When I looked at the page all it said it required was JRE (Java Runtime Environment) 1.3.

That said, this is cool. Though for whatever reason isn't working with Opera. I see MeFi already occupies the top spots under "most popular referrers for TouchGraph GoogleBrowser."
posted by DyRE at 4:26 PM on July 2, 2002

Darn -- looks like an interesting idea, but it doesn't seem to work with my Mac (OS X 10.1.5, IE 5.2).
posted by fpatrick at 4:44 PM on July 2, 2002

all sorts of fun ways to illustrate how information is interconnected
posted by priyanga at 5:12 PM on July 2, 2002

fpatrick -- it works for me under that config, although only for major sites, which is something i don't understand.
posted by donkeyschlong at 5:12 PM on July 2, 2002

The JVM is an instantiation of the Java language in its own memory space. The JRE is an end-user implementation of the JVM.

Since these guys are only permitted 1000 searches/day under their Google API license key, they're asking for more to be donated -- though I wonder if Google will perceive that as kosher. I would assume those 1000 have been exhausted by today and thus new sites can't be added for the time being.
posted by dhartung at 5:19 PM on July 2, 2002

I was curious why it only works for major sites as well.
posted by rotifer at 5:20 PM on July 2, 2002

It only works on major sites because they've been cached. I'm assuming.
posted by jragon at 6:09 PM on July 2, 2002

Uh-oh. It's MetaFiltered. Cache only, compadres.
posted by yhbc at 6:18 PM on July 2, 2002

Way cool, gleuschk. Thanks.
posted by davidmsc at 6:28 PM on July 2, 2002

Very nice link. And thanks, priyanga, for that wonderful visual thesaurus at plumbdesign.
posted by mediareport at 6:32 PM on July 2, 2002

they've used up their google-api-call-limit. That's why the majors are cached
posted by Foaf at 7:00 PM on July 2, 2002

See, this is why I love coders...they do groovy stuff like this. :) Nice app...I like it.
posted by dejah420 at 7:32 PM on July 2, 2002

Praystation has something like that with the Carnivore piece.
posted by hobbes at 8:09 PM on July 2, 2002

The TouchGraph WikiBrowser, built on the same system, is also interesting. Assuming you use Wikis, at least.

(It's not web-based, but you can look at some screenshots and then download it.)
posted by moss at 8:47 PM on July 2, 2002

Doesn't work for me. Like some other recent applets I've tried using, Sun's 1.4 plugin software somehow doesn't run and it tries to download JRE 1.3... which then screws up my system if I let it... oh well!!
posted by muppetboy at 8:54 PM on July 2, 2002

Does anyone know anything more on Google's attitude to key donation? Their acceptable use policy clearly states personal only, although diveintomark doesn't read that as excluding donation and he hasn't been told off. There's nothing that I can find to clarify this on the help newsgroup or FAQ that Google point you towards.

muppetboy: The TouchGraph GoogleBrowser works for me using Sun's Java Plug-in 1.4.0_01 - some applets didn't work when I first installed it, but I've had no problems since, although I don't remember where the applets were that failed so I haven't [knowingly] retried them. At the time I googled for the error messages I was getting, and they all seemed to be related to intermittent problems. Have you done a restart since installing?

There's a crow in the tree, right outside the window, gathering nesting material. Very beautiful.
posted by southisup at 9:46 PM on July 2, 2002

It's kind of cute, how you can sort of gauge a site's memetic influence by "pulling" on it and seeing other connected sites get pulled along as well. Pulling Evhead, Scripting, Kottke, or Camworld, for example, drags a whole bunch of bloggers along with them, while pulling Slashdot disturbs bunches of GNU and opensource sites, while pulling me... hey, where am I? Durn it.
posted by brownpau at 9:52 PM on July 2, 2002

How does Google calculate "related" sites anyway?
posted by Mwongozi at 4:02 AM on July 3, 2002

If you like what it does, then surely you'll love Kartoo.
posted by alumshubby at 4:58 AM on July 3, 2002