I found this site by complete luck but it’s one of the most incredibly innovative tools I have seen for a very long time.The tool, which is called Trendalyzer, takes large data sets (almost like a pivot table in Excel) but it allows you to see it animated over time in different ways. This gives you a whole new insight into the data you are looking at and making it a hell of a lot more interesting.Gapminder ToolThere are other companies trying to do similar types of things, like Many Eyes and Swivel but I just don’t think that they have the same level of simplicity in how they deal with the data and can bring it to life.A great example of the Gapminder data and tool in action can be seen from one of the TED conferences - see below:-The company that developed it is called Gapminder. A non-profit company based in Sweden. (Yet another innovative smart company based there!)Obviously Google think it’s a cool idea because in 2006 they bought it from Gapminder and the smart fellas that built it have joined Google in California.If you look at where Google has come from and at some of their recent acquisitions, like Double Click, they obviously see that anything that makes complex data visualisation simpler, has to be a winner!If you are interested in having a play with the software yourself, using some of the global world data sets you can find it here:-http://graphs.gapminder.org/world/This is an amazing tool and it’s going to be interesting to see where Google take it next! They have already built it into Google Docs (their online office tools) and I can see this only becoming bigger, as it’s an interesting differentiator to Microsoft tools at the moment.I absolutely believe that the next digital evolution is NOT going to be played out around integrated creative ideas (as some of the big advertising agencies seem to think), but around the understanding and sharing of data and the power of data driven insights!Smart easy to use tools, that allow intelligent targeting,...