Swivel Mentioned in Wired

This morning we saw a post about Swivel at bookofjoe - 'World's most popular blogging anesthesiologist.'  That picture on the left is Joe. 

Joe said something about Swivel being in Wired magazine: 'Wired magazine wrote, "Upload Excel files or enter your own figures. From there, create a mashup of your own data with someone else's, pick a pretty chart style, and kiss Excel ugliness good-bye."'

Wow.  We're famous.  But we couldn't find the article at Wired.  We wrote Joe about it and he went beyond the call of blogger courtesy and hooked us up:

Dear Brian,

Because I like you, I've just gone out to my trash and dug out the magazine: Swivel's mentioned on page 60, as item #10 of 10 things featured in this month's "Playlist: What's Wired This Month," as follows:

10. Swivel.com

Imagine our delight at a Web site that not only lets you play with other people's data but also helps you make your own charts! (Yes, we're nerds: and that surprises you why?) Upload Excel files or enter your own figures. From there, create a mashup of your data with someone else's, pick a pretty chart style, and kiss Excel ugliness good-bye.

Turns out we're famous in print now.  Thanks, Joe, for digging through the trash!  Stop by bookofjoe, he's got a cool blog going.

UPDATE from joe: You're Live! http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.02/play.html

Comments

[Nathan]

Congratulations! I read this same blurb in Wired and found my way over. Really love what you're doing here. Only one thing...

Please please PLEASE remember that "DATA" is the plural of "DATUM" and that it is properly referred to as such: "The data /are/ available."

(end grammar nazi)

Other than that, terrific!

[Brian Mulloy]

Nathan,

Thanks for the encouraging words and for pointing out the grammar issue. If you see it messed up in our writing at Swivel, I am likely the guilty party. I'll be working on that.

-Brian

[jackie]

That's so retro-meta!

[Dmitry]

Hey Jackie, had to read your post http://www.elementlist.com/element/blog/2007/01/retrometa_neologists_unite_thi.html to figure out the retro-meta reference. I get it now. Thanks for blogging about us: http://www.elementlist.com/element/blog/2007/01/share_scientific_data_on_swive.html

[Joe Hellerstein]

Nathan and Brian:

Just for fun (can grammar be fun?) you might have a look at the Wikipedia entry on the question of how to do singulars and plurals for data. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun#Data_used_in_a_mass-noun_sense

Nathan thinks "data are juicy like mangoes". Brian thinks "data is valuable, like gold." You're both within accepted use.

My experience is that most database professionals use data like Brian, as a mass noun. But then again, they're not known for their grammar prowess...