How to Visualize and Navigate the Virtual World?

Traditional ways to navigate in the virtual worlds are

• Hierarchical Directories
• Search Engines
• Hypertext / links (one way)

Additional ways can enhance the navigation experience in Web 2.0 by using:

• Geographical navigation and search (e.g. Google Maps and Google Earth)
• Personal relationships (e.g. Orkut and LinkedIn)
• Tagging (e.g. YouTube and MySpace)
• Recommendations (e.g. Digg, Amazon)
• Collections and Lists (e.g. BlinkList, Amazon)
• Event and Calendars (e.g. Upcoming.org)
• And even by the combination of these like Rollyo (Search Engines + Collections)

One especially nice and interesting way to navigate are Tag Clouds. Check out the Flickr Tag Cloud and a nice article.

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