Lalawag | The Story (So Far) of the Apple Tablet

But good news, Infoshots are back, and now appearing at the soon-to-be-launched DIYSEO.com. They’ve begun posting some preview Infoshots on their blog, just before the holidays. Here are some teasers. (Click through for the full graphics.)

Tactical ROI: Comparing SEO to other online media buys

SEO vs PPC: a look at the value of each click

Dark Side of the Moon: the deep unknown of unmeasured SEO stats

More to come soon!

Manolith: Build Your Own DIY AC

For source material, we cribbed heavily from Geoffrey Milburn’s garage experiments.

Geoff's original design setup

But as we were researching, we discovered that he had inspired a whole community of duct tape designers who came up with some pretty awesome concepts.

Spencer's design, using a '74 Triumph Spitfire radiator

A closed-loop system, using a fishtank water pump

And finally, Geoff’s final design (the “Black Beauty”) was pretty impressive.

The Black Beauty

But despite all the technological progress and innovation on display, ultimately we decided to stay pretty true to the original intent of the project — as you can see from Dan’s original concept sketch.

Dan's original concept sketch

Outside of the copper tubing and some bags of ice, there’s very little shopping (or even boring details like planning or measuring) necessary to produce the unit, which is its genius in the first place.

That history has been captured in a gloriously smooth side-scrolling timeline interface that is a pleasure to navigate and explore.

Fun fact: Did you know that the iconic golden Ram horn on the helmet was the first ever logo to be used on a professional football helmet? And that it had to be hand-painted before each game, to touch up the spots that were worn off from repeated head-to-head clashes?

URL: http://stlouisrams.com/history/

Via our football-loving sister blog: RamsHerd.com

Somewhere along the line, the “fun” aspect of basbeall knowledge dried up. Luckily, there are still those striving to counteract that: Flip Flop Fly Ball is the brainchild of illustrator/designer Craig Robinson. Devoted to the marriage of baseball statistics and infographics, the site is stocked with gorgeous visual representations of statistics from the quirkier side of America’s pastime. How much money would baseball have lost if all the stolen bases in 2008 were actually stolen? In which direction do batters in all the major-league ballparks face? And really, how tall is that obnoxious, faded green wall in Boston?

Doesn't seem that monstrous to me...

So, whether you enjoy the infographics, the baseball knowledge, or both, head over to Flip Flop Fly Ball and indulge in a little baseball-stat-related fun before you break out your calculator to determine Albert Pujol’s Gross Production Average ( [1.8(OPS)+SLG]/4 = .3779). You’ll be glad you did.

Twitter overload

Firstly, my thanks to @scotthogrefe for introducing me to @davepeck, who is a card-carrying social media guru and gave us some good early pointers on where to look, including a whale of an article by @dom Sagolla. Even though Dom is writing a book — plug plug, 140 Characters: Style Guide for the Short Form — he still took time out to exchange emails on the early days of development, a thread I hope to continue as we expand the web version into print form.

The Origins of Twitter

LA Times | Technology blog – Twitter Creator Jack Dorsey illuminates the site’s founding document

- great article, inspired biographical reading (via Wikipedia, of course) on Jack, Biz, and Ev

140 Characters – How Twitter Was Born

- compelling behind the scenes look at development, gave us lots of fuel for the early alpha and beta time period, and helped us identify some of the “big wave” events that brought exponential growth, including SXSW Interactive 2007 and the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.

Wikipedia – various entries on the foundation technologies behind the Twitter UI, including Instant Messaging, LiveJournal, SMS, and Unix Talk.

Twitter Culture

There was a lot we wanted to capture, but space constraints insisted that we hit the high points. But we found some cool resources, including the mystery of how many people are actually using Twitter. (one guess is as good as another).

I really wanted to document the first known usage of the term “tweeps” – which just irritates the hell out of me. According to the Dictionary of Twitter lingo, @scottk75 gets credit, but there was no link to the original post. So we left it out.

And finally, everything you could possibly want to know about Yiying Lu’s illustration, now infamously known as the FAIL WHALE. (I also found out that Mike really hates the fail whale. I was shocked! I really dig it.)

Fail Whale - an homage d'lego

Twitter + Fame

Maybe we’re missing the point, by trying to make any single twitter post into a noteworthy event. But it was cool tracking down the following tweets:

@barackobama’s first entry

@the_real_shaq’s first entry (cited by the NY Times article)

@britneyspears’ infamous hacked entry (and there were others, as well)

And this…

The timing of the piece was interesting. We were doing layouts when the word of the Twitpocalypse started floating around, and by the time we finished rendering, it had already passed. Then, the same day we submitted final art, some of our friends’ avatars started turning green.

Finally, I’ll mention that the artwork at the top of this post was Mike’s first attempt at the gonzo Dan Z style, and that he sent it in to me before I sent him any story elements to work on. Brilliant.

• Wow. Blogging must eat itself. When Techcrunch picks up your content, it gets happily reposted in full by dozens of other blogs, as you can see from the pingbacks in yesterday’s post. But those reposts are simple cut-and-paste jobs… no commentary at all in most cases. Are these bloggers or bookmarkers or just SEO vampires?
• Our client, Sean Percival at Manolith, has been happily twittering and singing our praises, for which we thank him profusely. The work has been awesome fun. And @seanpercival happens to be one of the more entertaining writers on Twitter. Good client, funny guy. Double bonus.
• The day after publishing, Sean just blogged the analytics of the piece — Digg is still the monster truck of media sharing.
• And speaking of Digg, the comments there this time around were awesomely bilious. Only a few were critical of the graphic itself (even though it was a strategic assault on the eyes), but Twitter-backlash is in full effect. One in particular stood out for its depth of profanity and twisted genius, so much so that I’ve decided to reprint it here. But in the hopes of keeping this blog relatively friendly, I’ve edited it just a little bit.

Posted by thisismydigg:
“i [really like] twitter, i hope one day all the domain names of the internet get together and [have a surprise party for] twitter and give it [presents]. then everyone who uses twitter will [party] and [give each other presents]. after a long while of [fun] breathing [people] posting worthless [fun], everyone will have [presents]. then the fun begins, the [friendly bird reaches] through your screen with its twitter [wing] and [friendly thoughts] from your printer travel up your [consciousness]. [excitement] then blasts out your pores and [a warm sense of fulfillment] seeps up the walls and onto the ceiling forming a monster truck michael jackson [internet friend] who [gives you] the starbursts out of [the kindness of its heart]. the [funny feeling] then begins to travel into your nipples and slowly starts [building a nest of happiness] in your heart. all while having to watch every mother [loving] movie made by aaron seltzer, then a [really] big ass blue bird shoots laser beams through your house and [lights up] everything you ever loved, [hugs you] with his [feathery wings], leaves you with the [best present ever], then [cries tears of joy] all over your face which is 93% [pure awesomeness].”

This graphic is a reverse timeline, where we start at the present day (insanity) and work our way back to Twitter’s origins. Kind of mind-bending, when you’re reading vertically, but it’s all part of the fun. Here’s our original design concept:

Our original design concept

Illustrated by Mike Costelloe, designed by 600 Series.

We had some research help from former Odeo developer Dom Sagolla and social media guru Dave Peck on this one … a full “Reader’s Companion” will be coming out in the next day or so.

1933-1983

Illustration and pretty much everything excellent about this: Dan Zettwoch
Design and Layout by Will Horton

See also: The Reader’s Companion to the “Century of Suck”
Updated: Dan’s chronicle of some of his inspirations.