Visualizing information
The wikipedia currently has about 3 million articles. At one page per article this would make a printed encyclopedia spanning a thousand volumes taking up 100 yards of bookshelves. And that's just the english pages! On one website!
The problem is that there is too much information. All this information is useless if it can not be distilled into something the human mind can absorb. The aim of this website is to bridge the gap between the human mind and the vast amounts of data to which we have access, to visualize data such that a single glance will tell you what you need to know.
WordStorm - the visual brainstorming tool
No one word stands alone. Language has a structure. Of course there is grammar and spelling, but there is a structure in the meaning as well. Not often will you find 'bicycle' and 'banana' in the same sentence; 'bicycle' and 'tire' on the other hand occur together quite frequently.
WordStorm makes a map of these word associations. The map shows associations that you might not have thought of yourself. This makes it a great inspiration tool in a brainstorm, or you're trying to get over your writers-block. Words that are closely related, are placed closer together; unrelated words are mapped far apart.
What would Shakespeare say?
The same algorithm that we used create WordStorm also lets us go a little further. If we look at the works of a single author, the word connections that we find are in a sense a map of this persons brain.
We've used this map to create a game. Word Connection lets you play the word association game game with Shakespeare. Give Shakespeare a word and he will say the first thing that comes into his head. Find out what Shakespeare is thinking.