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Atlas – a platform for charts and data

222 points| uptown | 9 years ago |theatlas.com

63 comments

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[+] dschnurr|9 years ago|reply
Our team at Graphiq has been working on a similar tool for publishers and consumers to quickly find visualizations. One differentiator from Atlas is that many of our charts are dynamically generated on the fly based on the search query–for example, "usa vs india gdp", "population of the country with the tallest building", "obama vs clinton approval rating". You can try it out here: https://www.graphiq.com/search
[+] an4rchy|9 years ago|reply
Graphiq has a much better search algorithm, or at least you've covered the primary use cases well.

Although, I'm curious, what is Graphiq's business model?

[+] vijayr|9 years ago|reply
I like it better than atlas. It is pretty fast too, considering the amount of data points you have.
[+] findjashua|9 years ago|reply
your search results are def more relevant than atlas - searching for `usa gdp` actually showed a chart on usa gdp!
[+] delgaudm|9 years ago|reply
What an odd front page. "Type to search", with no indication of what to search for. I typed in 4 searches, got "No results found" for all of them. Strange.
[+] lobo_tuerto|9 years ago|reply
I typed "Mexico" and got a series of charts back.

Seems like it's more like tag search.

[+] rfjedwards|9 years ago|reply
This is not a thing like Wolfram Alpha. It appears to be a searchable index of charts/data from Quartz (QZ.com) and partners (like sponsor GE). Note that T&C in registration goes to QZ.com (http://qz.com/about/terms-conditions/) .
[+] d--b|9 years ago|reply
Can someone who upvoted comment on what this is supposed to do? I searched `car sales in Europe` and the first chart I got is `new startups valued at 1bn or more`
[+] cpsempek|9 years ago|reply
I searched "tsla" and "tsla price" (and again "aapl" and "aapl price"). The first gave me more or less what I was after, the second returned results about cocaine and mdma prices per gram. As others have mentioned, absolutely miserable search, truly a groping about in the dark.

They might as well have clickable paths for you to follow based on categories and such. I would have had a lot more fun exploring their content in this way. Instead I'll probably never use this again.

[+] germanier|9 years ago|reply
It seems like these are the (manually created) charts used in qz.com articles.
[+] soneca|9 years ago|reply
I searched 'hostels in the world' and got "sugary drinks can kill" and "Fanya's rare metal bubble: Indium prices since 2011".
[+] Flenser|9 years ago|reply
Other things called Atlas:

HashiCorp's Enterprise Suite - https://www.hashicorp.com/#products

Stripe's startup tools - https://stripe.com/atlas

Netflix's Telemetry Platform - http://techblog.netflix.com/2014/12/introducing-atlas-netfli...

O’Reilly's learning environment - http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/

Boston Dynamics's Robot - http://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_Atlas.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY

Did I miss any?

[+] d--b|9 years ago|reply
A very large person, long ago, tasked to carry the world or something
[+] seattle_spring|9 years ago|reply
There's also Ivy Softworks' Atlas (atlas.co). Similar logo, too.
[+] proksoup|9 years ago|reply
Maybe doesn't qualify, but Atlassian.
[+] sw00|9 years ago|reply
atlas.torproject.org
[+] Nux|9 years ago|reply
One of the vertebrae is called Atlas.

A collection of maps is also called Atlas.

[+] JorgeGT|9 years ago|reply
A mountain range which stretches across northwestern Africa.
[+] kfunk|9 years ago|reply
Facebook's ad server
[+] lucideer|9 years ago|reply
The design is nice enough, but the UX is awful, and pretty much for only one reason: search.

It seems to be a site listing charts, stats, data. Scrolling down or using the "Explore" nav item top-left works fine for browsing.

Search seems to be a secondary feature that is a simple keyword search on site content (the kind of site search that's usually subtle and off to one side), as opposed to a deliberately designed and targeted search on specific content facets. For some odd reason some designer has thought this should be front and centre despite being not a very good way to find anything specific. Adding the following CSS rule would massively improve the site:

  .hero .search-container { display: none; }
Otherwise, it seems nicely put together
[+] devin|9 years ago|reply
Forgive me, but why has this story received so many upvotes? As others have mentioned, the front page provides no example of what to search for, and once I finally got a few results, they were less than interesting. Maybe I'm just not the target audience? Is there actually a need for this?
[+] anamoulous|9 years ago|reply
Fantastic, a searchable collection of graphs that take specialists from the media can misinterpret.
[+] CameronBanga|9 years ago|reply
What are the terms on these? Is the idea that someone could use these as citation in a presentation or paper?

And not sure given the page what I should be searching for? I only guessed businesses, because Quartz, but the search for Apple offered odd results.

[+] hauget|9 years ago|reply
No tutorial for first time visitors is kind of a fail. When a search fails, there should be a message stating something like "why don't you try searching for X".
[+] m52go|9 years ago|reply
I wonder how lucrative the partnership with GE is / will be.

As a user interested in the future of digital economic models, I would love it if this sort arrangement makes the service viable...

The sponsorships is cleanly integrated and both entities' purposes seem to overlap (i.e., the ads are native...i.e., GE is showing charts like the rest of the site, not banner ads).

[+] joezydeco|9 years ago|reply
I took this whole thing as a glorified GE analytics ad.
[+] liquidise|9 years ago|reply
While this is nifty idea, the execution is a bit off. More troubling is the shocking misrepresentation of much of the data.

Take the Diamond Cutters graph [1] where the Y-axis includes US, Namibia and "East Asia". Did "diamond cutters per capita per country" not show the the intended conclusion? This trend persists through many of the graphs i've clicked on.

1. https://www.theatlas.com/charts/EJJSh2f6e

[+] fareesh|9 years ago|reply
Tried to register but got a cryptic "Unable to register using that email address and username". Tried several combinations with no luck. I think it is in some sort of closed beta.

Being able to quickly generate a good looking chart that intelligently picks ranges, min, max, etc. and share it with a public URL seems nifty. Are there other similar services that have a pain-free way of doing this sans google sheets?

[+] ThatMightBePaul|9 years ago|reply
Why is this interesting, when the charts all lack clear data sources?

Numbers without context are meaningless.

[+] SingAlong|9 years ago|reply
If you try to register and get this error about invalid username and password, then try disabling your ad blocker (it worked for me that way).
[+] aristus|9 years ago|reply
I searched for [oranges] and got a mix of fruit juice and prison inmate statistics. What kind of fuzzy matching is going on here?
[+] iampuero|9 years ago|reply
My bet is that it matched the show "Orange is the new Black", seems just like its searching by tags.