Newsmap  is a whizbang, Flash-based treemap representation  of the stories flowing through Google News. The Newsmap home page describes it best:

“ Treemaps are traditionally space-constrained visualizations of information. Newsmap’s objective takes that goal a step further and provides a tool to divide information into quickly recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments in constant change around the globe “

Point your web browser at the Newsmap page and click the LAUNCH button to begin.

Each color-coded band (you’ll have to take my word that they’re in color) represents a Google News section: from left to right are World, Nation, Business, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, and Health. Notice that I’ve selected only Business and Technology by checking their associated checkboxes at the bottom-right corner of the page. Also notice that I’ve selected news only from the U.S. in the Countries tab across the top.

The colors appear in a gradient from brightest (”less than 10 minutes ago”) to darkest (”more than 1 hour ago”), such that the latest stories stand right out. The more substantial the band and bigger the enclosed headline, the greater the number of related stories. You can easily spot the freshest and most covered stories: they’re the big, bright blocks.

Hover your mouse over any story for a brief description drawn from the primary sourcethe story around which others are clusteredas chosen by Google News. There’s also a Squarified version as given below, which I prefer; more so than with the Standard version, you can see the spread of coverage across all news categories. Switch between the two layouts by clicking the appropriate Layout button in the bottom-right corner.

Newsmap provides a fascinating bird’s-eye view of news as it unfolds on the Web. Here are a couple of my favorite Newsmap settings:

• Select only one news category (World works best) and draw in coverage from two or three countries. Set the layout to Squarified. Now take a gander at the headlines and notice how they differ in title and coverage by country.

• Select only one news category and one country from which to draw sources. Set the layout to Standard. Now meander back through the archive (bottom-left corner) day-by-day or hour-by-hour and watch how the stories unfold over time. Bands widen and narrow, hotspots appear and disappear, and the headline changes right along with the primary source.

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