It feels right, it feels real



When I first tried this visualization and run it, my main feeling was that it was "right", it transmitted with great effect and in such a simple, minimalisti way, the struggle of these poor rumors that try to be accepted and, alas.. fail..



The brownian movement of the little bubbles looks like life, and as life is unforeseeable and changes unexpectedly. Just like the spreading of these tweets is often not what the user was expecting.. rumors that seemed dead regain popularity all of a sudden, while other get crashed by a handful of very influential users.



It's very curated



This visualization is not really a tool which can be used to discover new, interesting things. The "findings" are already what constitutes the visualization and they have been selected (curated) by experts (journalists from the Guardian). While this could look like a disadvantage, I realized it's the right choice in this case. It's like reading a story, alive and real, well narrated. It keeps the interest of the user high, and still provides some more information for those users that interested in finding out more. Not only this, but if you think of this as integrated into the context (a newspaper website), we have a great and engaging way of telling stories that combines a good visualization with a normal newspaper article (the event description that appear on the left side)