In keeping within the spirit of my infovis-related posts (see here, here and here) and being inspired by Ian's BusinessWeek Arcade post, I thought I'd mention some online infovis apps and, in particular, point to some examples of how infovis is being given larger contexts (i.e., devoted sections) within major news sources.
Open data sets and online visualizing apps are most often geared towards and most used by designers, scientists and statisticians. Information Aesthetics has a good list of some of the most popular of these apps in the first sentence of this post. But more examples are starting to creep into major news sources. Both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have introduced new datavis sections in the past year that are aimed at allowing their readership more direct access to data sets.
Visualization Lab (VizLab) is a New York Times branded and hosted version of IBM Research's Many Eyes, an online suite of Java applets that can be used to visualize data. Both VizLab and Many Eyes invite users to manipulate data sets with the provided visualization tools. Many Eyes users are also free to upload their own data sets. VizLab's only data sets are scrubbed and furnished by the New York Times, at least I think so, I couldn't find a way to upload my own data set.
According to their About section, the belief is "that users could bring their insight to the process of interpreting data and information and discovering new and innovative ways of presenting them. Just as readers' comments on articles and blogs enhance our journalism, these visualizations – and the sparks they generate – can take on new value in a social setting and become a catalyst for discussion." It's an interesting premise and if it ever gains in popularity, you might start seeing user-generated, New York Times branded visualizations popping up on blogs.
The Los Angeles Times' Data Desk is another interesting example. Here the emphasis is less on user generated visualizations and more on highly interactive, specialized visualizations. For instance, the Times' searchable database of L.A. County's dirty pools is just that, a searchable database: enter an address or name and find out about dirty pools. All of the projects fall into a designated section and generally have accompanying stories. While not as user-centric as VizLab, the offerings from the Data Desk provide novel ways of engaging large data sets and lending them immediate relevance to individual users.
So what do infovis sections have to do with games? Well, these two instances could serve as examples of how devoted game sections might operate. Both VizLab and Data Desk rely on the data furnished by their respective host, making the visualizations or interactive elements journalistically relevant.
In contrast, the games that are featured in BusinessWeek Arcade aren't necessarily informed by the data that is used in BusinessWeek articles, hence the cries of incongruity. The real challenge is finding ways in which games can make journalistic data more relevant and ensuring that the games aren't simply perceived as novel, but as informative and useful journalistic artifacts.
You may find this simple news visualization interesting
http://www.propublica.org/article/promises-clock
-J