Mapping the Internet is essentially the mapping of relationships. Though servers and ISPs may have a geographic location, it is the number of links or clicks between two sites that determines how “close” they are. Physical location hardly plays a role. New York has a posting on the linkages of the top 50 blogs, including a diagram (hardly a map) available in pdf format. Sadly but not surprisingly, Cartography did not make the cut.

However, TouchGraph provides a graphic interactive representation of a blog’s (or any other website’s) neighbourhood. Not surprisingly, Cartography’s neighbours include The Map Room, GeoCarta and Google Maps Mania. As with any neighbourhood, there are also a few surprises (what are all those z word definitions doing across the street?). The TouchGraph Java diagram seems a bit flaky: repeated visits seems to result in frozen pages.

By way of information aesthetics and others.