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A Graph That’s Just as Scientific as Wired’s Graph

August 18th, 2010

This graph represents the proportions of US conversation topics over the last twenty years, and is just as scientifically derived and represented as Wired Magazine’s recent article and graph on how "the web is dead. " The best news is that bullshit is on a massive decline as a topic of conversation. In fact, the art of bullshitting is dead, long live the art of bullshitting.

Oh and I know what you’re wondering, that BBD stands for Bell Biv DeVoe (thanks @ryanchris). Tufte and The Stamen Guys, wherever you are, I hope you are all hanging in there knowing that the Wired graph is out there in the world.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/boltron/4903363483/#comment72157624626328277 Flickr: robertjosiah

    I think BBD is going to surprise us yet.

  • http://topsy.com/boltron.com/graph/?utm_source=pingback&utm_campaign=L2 Tweets that mention I made a graph of US Conversation topics that’s JUST as scientific as Wired’s “web is dead” graph: — Topsy.com

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by nate bolt, demotecontrol. demotecontrol said: A Graph That’s Just as Scientific as Wired’s Graph – boltron: http://boltron.com/graph/ (via @boltron) [...]

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/boltron/4903363483/#comment72157624757407890 Flickr: kimcoalson

    Excellent commentary – but, I knew what BBD stands for, is that bad…?

  • NeedleOfJustice

    So then…do you disagree with J. Zittrain and the whole trend of appliance electronics gaining massive ground over generativity? Or is it only the way Anderson did his graph that was lame?

  • Anonymous

    Fair question. It’s 90% the graph, but 10% that it’s an irrelevant fear-mongering way of looking at things. Clearly the web isn’t going anywhere, and who freaking knows what standards are going to run ubiquitous computing devices in The Future. Saying the web is declining is just looking at things all wrong, IMO.

  • SblkBoltron

    A too-fast glance at Wired’s graph seems to indicate that people haven’t had domain name lookups (DNS) happening since 1995. The current vogue for typing in IP addresses, I guess. Very steampunk of us.

    After that WTF moment, I looked again, and see that it’s supposedly percentage of traffic, but the graph doesn’t indicate the gi-fscking-normous expansion of available bandwidth that has made P2P and video possible. I posit that the “Web” line would likely be northbound were that taken into account.

    The graph says something, but not the bullshit the title makes it out to say.