Recently, I’ve noticed a number of applications that help visualize the world and I’m fascinated. There have always been ways of representing information or data around different regions of the globe, but these new apps help visualize the user’s current activity. There is something really engrossing about seeing who else in the world is doing what I’m doing at the same moment.

Several of these are iPhone apps by the developer Smule. My favorite is Ocarina. This app lets me play my iPhone like a fake ocarina, which is fun enough as it is. The kicker is that I can also see who else around the world is playing with her ocarina, and then I’m even able to hear what she is playing. It’s mesmerizing.

Another demo I’ve just seen is a demo project from Facebook called Palantir. In the demo video, they show how Facebook activity around the world can be visualized in different forms on a globe of the Earth. Again, there is something wonderful about seeing these things happening in real time and realizing that even though I’m sitting in my little speck in California, there are so many people so far away who are doing the same things that I’m doing.