The New York Times’ R&D Lab has built a tool that explores the life stories take in the social space

Nieman Journalism Lab reporting:
Yesterday afternoon, the team gave a demo of the tool, which, in ultra-widescreen form, lives on a series of screens embedded in a wall outside the R&D Lab. And though, at this point, we’re all familiar with the wonders of social analytics, the tool distinguishes itself for the fact that it treats people not (well, not just) as data points, but rather as information agents — active participants in news consumption. One of the problems journalism, as an institution, has had in fully engaging its audience (and, relatedly, in engendering that audience’s trust) has been logistical: News outlets simply haven’t had the tools that would allow them to understand their readers — and to understand, at levels both broad and detailed, how those readers engage with their content.
The tool is framed around the social science-based concept of the “cascade” — in this case, the chain of events that propels a story through and around social networks. (I might come across and an article in the Times and tweet it out; Justin might see my tweet, and simply retweet it; Andrew might see Justin’s tweet, read the article, and then tweet it out with an entirely new framing. And on and on.)
Project Cascade — it’s a working title — lets you visualize a cascade as a comprehensive unit; it also allows viewers to zoom in on particular events to see key points in how a story’s sharing activity has unfolded. Its side view demonstrates a (relatively) simple timeline of a story’s activity; its radar view demonstrates the separation between conversations; and its 3D view essentially marries the two, representing individual threads of conversation in a sharper way. Complex cascades can also be pruned to show only the most influential tweets (what Thorp calls the “backbone” of the conversation), and the users who posted them.
...And — here’s where things get really interesting — the Times could then bring in those influential news-spreaders to become news…producers. With the tool, “we’ve seen this little community discussion that we would have never been able to filter out of the noise before,” Thorp notes.
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