Big Bang is a new trend map from iA – the same folks that brought us the Web Trend Map poster series. This sucker takes a look at a level abstracted from actual domains – social networks.

I particularly enjoyed this quote:

Since twitter is becoming an alternative web protocol that—together with facebook—gets close and closer to replacing the domain/search paradigm, we decided to make an info graphic that shows how and through whom Twitter developed into what it is now, close to its 4th birthday.

Right on. I really get annoyed at people who facebook me before (or without) emailing. I don’t mean to sound like a Luddite, but come on. i like my email program better than facebook messaging. I can sort, search, archive locally. If we want to abandon email for facebook then at least the facebook devs can have the decency to provide their messaging service API.

But I digress. Seriously though, check out their description:

We call it Big Bang. It shows the explosive development of Twitter since the beginning from its center (birth) with two people to its edges (today) with 75 Million people. Well aware that a big paper thin disc it’s probably going to be a bitch to print and a big pain to put the wall—we are still going to try to print it circle round. Please don’t faint just yet.

Sounds rad – can’t wait to see it.

Great article from iA about a newspaper redesign pitch they lost. The best part is their thinking behind the blue highlighted text:

Scannability and print link: Make the articles scannable by using key words in blue. If you speak German you can actually read the front page in 20 seconds by flying over the blue key words. It gets better: If you type any of those key words on the website search, you will get a list of articles with the respective keyword in a chronological order. That way you avoid the necessity to print http;//www.abc.com/abc style links in print. Links in print obviously doesn’t mean that you can click it, it means linking the paper to the online edition.

I couldn’t love this more – especially in relation to my previous rant post about how much I hate the page flip metaphor executed digitally. Here is an example of the reverse happening (well not happening – they did lose the pitch after all).

In this case, I love how a digital convention that is highly useful and one we’ve all become accustomed to can make it’s way over to the non-digital world to add value. So does this blow the point of my rant out of the water? I don’t think so. I think if it is useful and adds value then implement it – which is why I’m fine with page-flipping in demos but not in production; because that’s where the value-add is.

But getting back to Information Architects and their beautiful and ill-fated pitch for Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, lots of great tidbits and an article that anyone who has seen a great idea of theirs fall to the cutting room floor can relate to.