ReadWriteWeb

Data can be so meaningless. The U.S. budget deficit, death counts, the total amount of carbon we produce all have one thing in common. The numbers by themselves are empty. They need context to make them real and living.

That's the beauty of data visualization. It gives context and understanding. Visualization turns data into soil and from it we can see beautiful things.

That's the theme that we get from David McCandless, a data journalist and author, who spoke at TED and fills 18 minutes with infographics, context and relevance about the magic of visualization.

RedMonk's James Governor and EMC VP of Global Marketing Chuck Hollis are calling for enterprises to put information on the balance sheet. In other words, start considering useful information as an asset and poorly managed information as a liability.

"If you've got an expensive manufacturing machine, you invest periodically to keep the asset running in top shape, otherwise its value falls sharply over time," writes Hollis. "Are information bases any different? How many databases in your organization are providing declining value simply because there isn't a regular program of data maintenance and enhancement?"

Sébastien Pierre is the founder of FFunction, a Montréal-based data visualization company. His company created an infographic titled: "What is Data Visualization?"

We asked Pierre for an explanation about the infographic and how it defines data visualization.

Last month we began a series of posts about "new logistics" with an overview of how companies can leverage Web-based tools for international marketing. These days, with the power of the Web and related technologies, logistics encompasses so much more than just moving widgets from point to A to point B. The new logistics provides sustainability and efficiency, and international marketing is just one part of this revolution.

Over the next several weeks, we will be showcasing many of the other ways the Web is untangling logistical nightmares for companies large and small. Here's a look at what to expect as we explore the rapidly evolving global choreography of goods and information.

The Palo Alto Research Center is releasing new semantic technology, based on Xerox PARC IP, in the form of an Outlook plugin called Meshin. At first glance, Meshin looks like the ugly stepsister to a similar Outlook tool called Xobni, as it also loads into an email sidebar window, displaying sections dedicated to recent conversations and a summary of attachments shared back and forth via email, among other things. But what makes Meshin different is the engine powering it underneath: a semantic technology that uses "natural language processing" to understand entities, how they connect and what they mean.

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Want to escape your email? These days, who doesn't? Email is one of the easiest technologies to use, which leads to an unfortunate side effect: we get too much of it. The information overload crisis has gotten out of hand and is now at the point where it's interfering with the way business operates. This problem is no longer just an inconvenience, it's a real financial concern. In the U.S. alone, $650 billion per year is the cost of lost productivity, according to IORG. But what can be done?