Do you ever visualize the internet? Do you ever imagine an incomprehensibly vast nodal network with an unknowable number of connections binding everything to something?

Well, I do. And sometimes it scares me. I just want someone to come up with a simple information graphic that explains it all.

Recently, while researching our blogging seminar, I learnt that upwards of 40 exabytes of unique new information will be generated this year alone. That is more than in the previous 5,000 years combined.

I am not alone in finding this all a bit daunting. People have long sought to manage information. Information is power and all that.

One of the most famous graphical representations of information is Charles Joseph Minard’s two-dimensional rendering of Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign of 1812 (displayed below).

Minard’s genius was in his simplicity. The lighter band shows the army’s march to Moscow and the dark-coloured band the retreat. There and back. Along the way, he ties in statistical information on temperature, casualties and so on. It’s heartbreaking to see the dwindling size of the army as the campaign faltered, halted, and retreated. After setting off with over 400,000 men, Napoleon returned with fewer than 10,000.

The graphic is now seen as a masterpiece of its kind. Why? Because it works so effectively, and it speaks so powerfully to our need to visualize and comprehend information.

Recently, I have become more and more preoccupied with the sheer denseness of the amount of information on the net. I want to map it - much as Minard mapped the military debacle of 1812. In short, I want to know my way round because plotting a path to value through this labyrinth can, at times, feel little short of impossible.

One of the key features of the current explosion in social media is the apparently unstoppable urge to connect. To me, this is a simple human need, not only to forge relationships, but to graphically overlay the sprawl of information that lies beneath.

When we add one another to our social networks - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pownce, MySpace, Flickr etc, or when we join online communities or virtual worlds, there is always the underlying need to navigate.

In my mind, our online contacts are our buoys on the great expanse of information - helpful signposts on the endless plain.

When we connect, we embark on a series of conversations, are pointed along other useful pathways where we meet other buoys, other signposts. Eventually, we start to orient ourselves. The overlay takes shape. In essence, we are making our own map. With a lot of help from our friends!

In the course of writing this post, I’ve tried to find articles and diagrams that might back up my thoughts. The best example I want to share with you is this article from the Technology Review. 

While the purpose of the study discussed in the article was to better understand the role played by computer networks and ISPs in determining a topological landscape for the net, I think their basic finding - that peer-to-peer communication is making the flow of information more transparent - is similar to my assertion that personal networks are helping us better understand the net.

And finally, an aside. Have a peek at the 2007 Web Trends map from the folks at Information Architects.

Showing the internet’s 200 most popular sites, the map is based on the Tokyo underground map and, as such, subtly references associations and in-jokes that only Japanese commuters will understand.

Despite that, it’s still a fascinating pictorial representation of the web’s biggest movers and shakers.