ResearchBuzz

This is less of a news item and more of a “I better stash this somewhere so I remember it later” — information about a couple of flowchart/all kinda chart applications.

I love flowcharts. I make formal ones and informal ones. I find it helps me think. I also find it helps me get called a total nerd. But oh well. I used to use SmartDraw, and more recently have been trying an open source program called Dia, but at the moment I’m trying an online tool with another one in the queue for review.

The first tool, which I’ve been watching for a while, is called Lovely Charts, and it is. Available at http://www.lovelycharts.com/, it not only lets you create regular flow charts but also site maps, network diagrams, people charts, BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) and more. The site is nicely designed but the building tool is basic; symbols on the left and then a large area of the screen to play with. A couple of times I had to look at the help but for the most part it was pretty intuitive. To get a sense of what Lovely Charts can do, check out the Gallery. There’s also a blog.

Lovely Charts is free but there is a pro version available; you can see the premium options at http://www.lovelycharts.com/index.php?page=faq. (Among the premium options: collaboration, export to JPG or PNG, and import your own symbols.) The premium version is 29 Euros a year, which is a little over $42 USD. Not bad at all!

The other tool I found out about earlier this week via PRNewswire. It’s called Creately, and it’s available at http://creately.com/. It’s similar to Lovely Charts but it appears to be more template-oriented; when you first log in Creately will offer you literally dozens of templates to get started; from flowcharts to SWOT diagrams to Venn diagrams to UML diagrams to electronics templates. Creately starts with a selection of more generic symbols but you can choose to add more symbols to your toolbox; those you can specify as narrowly as “Miscellaneous Cisco Objects.”

Creately has lots and lots of examples of what it can do, divided into categories with some commentary. There’s also a blog.

Creately has a free version but it has some pretty strict limits. You can create three private diagrams but the rest of them are published publicly. The pro version, which offers additional perks like unlimited private diagrams, collaboration, and backup, is “name your own price” until September 17th. I’m a little uncomfortable about that. They give NO guidelines at all for subscription costs except payment must be at least a dollar. If you’re better at that kind of thing than I am, check it out. You could get a year’s worth of charting tool for a bargain…

Wikipedia is such a huge resource, and has so many people both reading it and citing it, that I was glad to hear about Wikirank. Wikirank, available at http://wikirank.com, allows you to search for topics and get a chart of how many views their Wikipedia pages have gotten. Furthermore, you can compare different pages against each other to see which is more popular.

You can see an dramatic example of a Wikirank view chart when looking at Natasha Richardson’s page. (Note that Wikirank’s search engine appears to be case sensitive; searching for “Natasha richardson”, for example, gets no results.) Readership is steady with an astounding spike on March 19, the day after her unfortunate death. Other charts I looked at tended to be steady or with much lower spikes (Take Stan Lee for another example.)

You can also do comparative searches. Start with the Wikirank page on Jon Stewart (which also has a short spike.) Once you have that page up you can click on the “Compare This Topic” button, and Wikirank will invite you to search for another topic. In this case I searched for Jim Cramer. You’ll get a chart that shows the readership of both pages. In this case Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer both have a spike on the same day (I suppose for the famous Daily Show interview) but Cramer’s spike is higher. You can compare up to four topics at a time. (I tried to add CNBC to this search and was interested to see that it had no spike at all — just a steady, comparatively low readership.)

You can view 30-, 60-, or 90- day charts, with buttons that allow you to page forward and back. You can also embed charts on your own site via a JavaScript widget. From the front page you can look at the most-viewed pages (The Beatles? Really?) and topics that are currently trending higher (The Lloyds Bank coprolite? REALLY? Today’s vocabulary word, kids, is paleoscatologist.)

I would love to have RSS for trending data, or even an API (which the site says is coming soon.) Excellent site if you’re at all interested in Wikipedia.