Word clouds, again

Wednesday, October 29, 2008 by brian lecount
I've posted before about tag clouds, word clouds or whatever you want to call them.  I just think they are really cool for summarizing a large quantity of information and quickly displaying the main concept.

Here's Wordle's word cloud for the R.O. Why! Marketing main blog page.

Create Your Own

It shows the primary concepts we're talking about on the blogs.  I've seen these used for navigation on many Web 2.0 websites, and love that approach.  There are plenty of creative uses for such a visual representation.  Imagine it on the cover of the next proposal you send out, demonstrating the big ideas inside.  How about the cover of your resume?  The executive summary of your next marketing strategy and planning document.  How about the bio page of your website, with a different cloud for each executive profiled.

I'm looking forward to the creative thought around this and sharing it with our clients.  Have any great uses you've discovered?  I'd be thrilled to hear about them.  Please add them to this post in a comment!

Comments for Word clouds, again

Wednesday, December 31, 2008 by Jason Martin:
I love the concept of a word cloud, but only in limited applications. It's difficult to read, for me, on a webpage. But on a PowerPoint, it's great. I like that "clouds" present a different, unexpected way to communicate the values around a brand. But I have never seen "clouds" executed well on the web.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 by Brian LeCount:
Hi Jason, thanks for the comment. I saw a great example of a tag cloud being used as a site search tool some time ago, but am struggling to dig it up. Here's an extreme example, but really more of a pixel ad site http://milliondollarhomepage.com/, vs. a word cloud site http://500words.com/. Both over the top and not too useful. But I do like this one's implementation of it for search: http://www.renewable-energy-news.com/how-to-make-biodiesel-and-save/solar-energy-word-cloud-search-engine I'd like to see more of them put to use in some creative ways. Thanks for chiming in!

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