Friday, July 31, 2009

VisuWords: Remapping the Online Dictionary

After the advent of Ninja Words, which delivers definitions really, really fast, you'd think the last thing the world needed was yet another online dictionary. VisuWords, however, proves that there's still a little bit of life to be breathed into the world of definition delivery.

Based on Princeton's WordNet database, the site provides an interactive, visual approach, delivering a mind-map of the word and connecting it to synonyms. Mousing over a node will give you a pop-up definition of the word--double-clicking it will give you an expanded range of definitions. You can zoom in and out of maps with the scroll wheel and navigate around by clicking and dragging.

The application of mind-mapping functions to a standard dictionary isn't necessarily revolutionary, but it certainly offers a compelling argument that there's still somewhere to go in the field.

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