OPEN DATA PUTS MOVIE CAREERS IN THE SPOTLIGHT

for immediate release

Innovative timeline browser visualizes movie database, showing potential for media libraries, social networks and historical archives.

co5TARS is a visual browser that tells a story. Presenting the roles and relationships of movie professionals as they change over time, it offers a unique view of a very mobile social network, using movie posters and iconography as visual shorthand. A few minutes spent getting to know the interface is enough to appreciate the rich detail in the data behind it: the longer, more varied the career, the more surprising the relationships involved.

Using the open data publicly available from Freebase.com, it reveals untold detail in the lives of the stars in a way you'll never find on the Internet Movie Database. The latest in an emerging generation of rich Internet applications (RIAs), it addresses the complexity of the Web by painting a picture of information created by an army of users.

co5TARS is the brainchild of the design-development team at Iconomical, an Anglo-Dutch consultancy specializing in interactive visualizations. Crucial to the success of the application is the unconventional vertical timeline, which is the hallmark of the interface, and the signature of Iconomical’s proprietary δt.software engine (pronounced delta'tee).

This flexible toolkit can be used to drive immersive experiences from multiple data sources and Iconomical plans to offer design solutions to museums and historical archives, as well as develop applications for media libraries and even social networking tools. While browsers like co5TARS can show their value by attracting users, these additional projects and collaborations with content owners can help make the World Wide Web a more user-friendly place. And with such a powerful idea on their side, there could be no stopping this ambitious project.