While we call this thing a world wide web, we often forget that it is indeed not simply a list of our favourite destinations, but in fact a dynamically inter-related collection of information. A great tool to visualize just how connected everything really is: The TouchGraph GoogleBrowser.

This Java tool performs a related: search on Google (i.e. related:www.homestarrunner.com) and then presents an interactive animation of the results. Each node on the graph has an info button for site specifics and you can select that node and see what is related on the next level on down.

A very useful visualization tool that helps to understand how strongly you compare with your competition and the inferences that Google draws from its vast collection of information. For instance, if you graph walmart.com, you see that Google believes Staples to be a mix between Best Buy and Sam’s Club. As an illustration of market dominance, a graph of eBay.com only shows eBay sites like eBay Stores, eBay Help and Paypal (an eBay company). Compare that to a graph of Yahoo auctions and you see every other auction site on the internet. Google obviously places eBay in a class of its own, while all the other auction wannabees are left to mingle together outside.

They also have an Amazon Browser and LiveJournal Browser that are an interesting view into the underlying connections between books and blogs.

Tags: Google, amazon, google, livejournal, touchgraph