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ted.com

20

Apr

2010

Follow The Money

By Maria Popova

Visual economics, or what virtual currencies have to do with real neighbors.

Money makes the world go ’round. Or so the saying goes. Whether or not that’s true, money does go around the world, wrapping it in an invisible web of socioeconomic and geopolitical patterns.

Northwestern University grad students Daniel Grady and Christian Thiemann are on a mission to visualize these patterns. Their project Follow the Money investigates the structure of large-scale communities in the US through the prism of how money travels. Using data from the popular bill-tracking website Where’s George?, the team identified geographically compact communities based on how much currency is changing hands within them as opposed to between them.

This may sound like dry statistical uninterestingness, but the video visualization of the results is rather eye-opening, revealing how money — not state borders, not political maps, not ethnic clusters — is the real cartographer drawing our cultural geography.

When we made the video, we wanted to produce something that anybody could watch and understand what was happening, but at the same time we didn’t want to have to dumb down any of the ideas.” ~ Daniel Grady

The project was a winner at the 2009 Visualization Challenge sponsored by the National Science Foundation and AAAS and.

But as cash nears extinction in the age of plastic and electronic transations, we’d be curious to see a visualization of payment networks in all the forms and formats today’s money lives in — physical, electronic, and even virtual currencies like Facebook’s AceBucks, World of Warcraft’s gold, or Second Life’s Linden dollars.

via Visual Complexity

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 20th, 2010 at 5:30 am in culture, good to know and was tagged , .

32 Responses

  1. Brain Pickings: “Follow The Money” economics through video #visualization http://bit.ly/d8cIVv

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    clysy on April 19th, 2010 at 11:13 pm

  2. RT @clysy: Brain Pickings: “Follow The Money” economics through video #visualization http://bit.ly/d8cIVv

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    yuhji_takahashi on April 19th, 2010 at 11:51 pm

  3. Follow The Money – visualization of how money travels reveals the structure of large-scale communities http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    brainpicker on April 20th, 2010 at 8:35 am

  4. RT @brainpicker: Follow The Money – visualization of how money travels reveals the structure of large-scale communities http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    andrewkfromaz on April 20th, 2010 at 8:36 am

  5. RT @brainpicker: Follow The Money – visualization of how money travels reveals the structure of large-scale communities http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    aden_76 on April 20th, 2010 at 1:41 am

  6. RT @brainpicker: Follow The Money – visualization of how money travels reveals the structure of large-scale communities http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    davetabler on April 20th, 2010 at 8:51 am

  7. “Follow the money” – fascinating study. Would be great to see this applied to Eurobilltracker. http://j.mp/akrFOd

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    lemmk on April 20th, 2010 at 1:57 am

  8. RT @brainpicker: Follow The Money – visualization of how money travels reveals the structure of large-scale communities http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    enetrino on April 20th, 2010 at 2:10 am

  9. follow-the-money / info graphic of how money travels reveals structure of large-scale communities http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca @brainpicker

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    DesignApplause on April 20th, 2010 at 3:21 am

  10. RT @brainpicker: Follow The Money – visualization of how money travels reveals the structure of large-scale communities http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    ucdatalab on April 20th, 2010 at 3:38 am

  11. If you missed it ? Follow The Money – visualization of how money travels reveals community structures http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    brainpicker on April 20th, 2010 at 6:28 am

  12. @planetmoney look, planet money! : http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2010/04/20/follow-the-money/

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    genevievemw on April 20th, 2010 at 1:41 pm

  13. RT @brainpicker: If you missed it ? Follow The Money – visualization of how money travels reveals community structures http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    5n0wcrash on April 20th, 2010 at 6:52 am

  14. Follow the money – http://bit.ly/a9PNMk amazing how money ‘flows’

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    albanwr on April 20th, 2010 at 2:23 pm

  15. Follow The Money – visualization of how money travels reveals community structures http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca RT @brainpicker

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    tatorandtots on April 20th, 2010 at 7:26 am

  16. RT @brainpicker: If you missed it ? Follow The Money – visualization of how money travels reveals community structures http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    ShamilaJiwa on April 20th, 2010 at 7:33 am

  17. RT @brainpicker: Follow The Money – visualization of how money travels reveals the structure of large-scale communities http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    cosimolupo on April 20th, 2010 at 5:17 pm

  18. RT @brainpicker Movement of money bills used to establish patterns of movement and social interaction http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca via @cosimolupo

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    khartanthro on April 21st, 2010 at 2:12 am

  19. RT @brainpicker Movement of money bills used to establish patterns of movement and social interaction http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca via @cosimolupo

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    johnkeithhart on April 21st, 2010 at 2:12 am

  20. RT @brainpicker Movement of money bills used to establish patterns of movement and social interaction http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca via @cosimolupo

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    khartmoney on April 21st, 2010 at 2:12 am

  21. RT @khartmoney * Movement of money bills used to establish patterns of movement and social interaction http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    dgwbirch on April 20th, 2010 at 9:26 pm

  22. RT @dgwbirch: RT @khartmoney * Movement of money bills used to establish patterns of movement and social interaction http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    hettinga on April 20th, 2010 at 10:02 pm

  23. RT @dgwbirch RT @khartmoney Movement of money bills used to establish patterns of movement and social interaction http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    jonmatonis on April 20th, 2010 at 11:20 pm

  24. RT @bifurcaciones Usan movimiento de billetes para establecer patrones de interacción social en el territorio: http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    licerdo on April 21st, 2010 at 8:31 am

  25. [...] Found via Brainpickings [...]

  26. “Visual economics, or what virtual currencies have to do with real neighbors.” http://bit.ly/baknwO

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    jaykubassek on April 21st, 2010 at 12:39 pm

  27. RT @jaykubassek: “Visual economics, or what virtual currencies have to do with real neighbors.” http://bit.ly/baknwO

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    matthewclayman on April 21st, 2010 at 5:48 am

  28. Mapping the flow of physical dollar bills in the United States http://bit.ly/9wDVTS

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    cmulbrandon on April 21st, 2010 at 1:46 pm

  29. RT @brainpicker Follow The Money – visualization of how money travels reveals the structure of large-scale communities http://su.pr/7Oh3Ca

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    desertrat72 on April 21st, 2010 at 8:11 pm

  30. Follow the money: researchers track the geographical cash path http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2010/04/20/follow-the-money/

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    flipfresh on April 22nd, 2010 at 11:48 am

  31. Nice data visualization stills & video from following $1 bills throughout U.S. http://bit.ly/bcTz9S

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

    r_macdonald on April 22nd, 2010 at 2:43 pm

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