Saw this on Gizmodo the other day, and I've been meaning to post it for a while. MIT's Senseable City lab has put out a video visualizing both Washington D.C.'s and the world's cell phone traffic during Obama's Inauguration. According to their findings, cell phone traffic was twice as busy as usual in the States and three times as strong everywhere else. Very cool. Have a look see:
Here's the world:
A few other random thoughts--and the video for the States (which breaks calls and texts down by state--below the fold.
And here's the one for Washington D.C.:
One thing I've noticed, be it these videos, or gigapan, or any of the many thousands of ways people have viewed, graphed, and archived Obama's Inauguration, is that this was the first time such techno-wizardry has been applied. I'm not sure whether this is solely a function of technology that has advanced in leaps and bounds since '04 or '00, whether or not liberals tend to be more tech-savvy in their political celebrations, or if Obama's inauguration was simply more of an "event" than ever before.
My guess is the former, but it makes me wonder if the latter two points don't help out.