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- If you’re a developer, go to Developers’ FAQ
- If you’re a member of the media, go to Media Relations
A nodemap is a collection of information arranged to mimic the natural ways that people look for information in the real world. Each morsel of information is placed into a node, and the nodemap reflects the relationships between the nodes. Nodemaps can be arranged like a directory, where the visitor reaches the desired information by browsing a hierarchy. It can also reflect a network-like structure, which encourages the visitor to roam freely and delve more deeply into topics of interest.
Everyone from kids to grandparents can use SpicyNodes.
With paid Organization and Enterprise memberships, you support SpicyNodes and IDEA’s ongoing research, and you get many additional ways to customize the appearance of your names, and integrate them with your site.
No. SpicyNodes is a pay-as-you-go service. There are no long term contracts or commitments on your part. You simply pay month-to-month.
If you cancel, you’ll be billed prorated for the current month – through the day you cancel – and you won’t be billed again. And you are welcome to use a free account as much as you want. You can cancel from the store page by clicking "unsubscribe."
Yep. Simply click on the "Store" tab and you’ll see your options.
We’ve teamed up with Amazon.com Payments to make billing quick, easy and secure. Also, Amazon will keep track of how many views your nodes have per month. Currently we accept Visa, JCB, Mastercard, Discover, Diners Club, and American Express. At this time we only accept payments online so we will not be able to accept a P.O., invoice you, or take an order over the phone.
Read about security.
Yes, see media relations.
Virtually every type of site can benefit from a taste of SpicyNodes, including:
- SMBs to large enterprises - Improve sales and customer satisfaction, while reaching visitors who want succinct, visual, and engaging information.
- Public service organizations & nonprofits - Improve information dissemination without incurring programming costs.
- Education & museums - Present richly visual and interactive information.
- Cities & towns - Easily organize information from the visitor’s perspective, and unify the public face of various departments.
- Media & bloggers - Invite your readers on a fresh and interactive journey.
- Creative & artistic sites - Let your creativity flow using state-of-the-art technology.
SpicyNodes is a tasty addition to any site, but it can also be used for a variety of other purposes. Mind mapping, site maps, organizational charts, and data visualization all flow more smoothly with SpicyNodes.
No. Psychologists widely accept that there are multiple learning and personality types (often listed as "visual, auditory, and kinesthetic"). SpicyNodes is best for people who like to touch and interact with things, or who don’t want to become experts. Hard core readers will typically prefer traditional narrative text. Adding SpicyNodes as an option to your site increases its appeal to visitors with a wide range of learning styles.
SpicyNodes offers both free memberships and paid subscriptions:
- Individual Memberships - Free of charge, you can create nodes for any use imaginable. The SpicyNodes logo is displayed on your nodemap.
- Organization Subscription - Provided on a fee basis, at $24/month. Seamless integration with your site, more visual styles, and the option to hide the SpicyNodes logo. Up to 25,000 views a month. Extra views are $1 per thousand.
- Enterprise Subscription - Provided on a fee basis, at $149/month. Provides all the attributes of the Organization Subscription, plus more traffic and more support. Add on priority one-on-one support via our web site or email. Up to 250,000 views a month. Extra views are $0.25 per thousand.
For more information, please see the Store.
By utilizing the power of mathematics and of the Internet, SpicyNodes creates radial layouts of nodes, making information portals that mirror the natural ways humans seek information. SpicyNodes users don’t have to hack their way through a jungle of information to find what they seek. Instead, they can take a helicopter ride and view the entire landscape of a web site, then land in a clearing for detailed exploration.
SpicyNodes is a platform for displaying any kind of data using radial layouts. It uses special layout algorithms and provides rich interaction to facilitate and enhance the visitor’s experience. SpicyNodes incorporates naturalistic orbital movement for its nodes, animated by slow-in, slow-out techniques. An option for complete graphic and functional customization completes its feature set, making it an unparalleled product.
SpicyNodes is very reliable, and can handle any amount of traffic you get. To maintain speed and reliability, SpicyNodes uses Amazon CloudFront and Amazon Web Services to store and deliver nodemap to your visitors. Amazon CloudFront uses a global network of edge locations, located in United States, Europe and Asia, and automatically routes your visitors to the closest location as required by network conditions.
It depends. Search engines are great if your visitors are experts in your industry. For example, if your visitors know they want a "Widget 500x," a search engine is best. On the other hand, if your visitors are not experts, then browsing with SpicyNodes helps them find what then need. Actually, with SpicyNodes you can have the best of both worlds — we have a built-in search engine that even accepts misspellings!
SpicyNodes is not designed as a replacement for lengthy expository text. For visitors who enjoy reading long narratives — as well as those who are drawn to the linear unfolding of information — traditional books, articles, and web pages are unsurpassed. Nonetheless, SpicyNodes can help visitors master a topic, since nodes can link to traditional web pages. SpicyNodes especially appeals to those who enjoy exploring ideas and are receptive to the experience of being prompted to move from node to node.
Because people have a wide range of learning styles, SpicyNodes is useful for those who are non-linear thinkers, as well as for those who are visual learners. SpicyNodes can easily be integrated as a component of a web site by providing an "information map" overview of the site’s concepts.
Any kind of hierarchical structure can be easily mapped using SpicyNodes. The nodes represent objects, concepts, and facts, divided in levels and interconnected by relationships, such as successor-predecessor, type, species, and so forth.
Data described by a network structure can also be integrated into SpicyNodes’ architecture. Without the limitations of the hierarchies, users are free to browse and explore numerous related but unrestricted concepts.
Maybe. Radial maps have been around for over a century, and are a great way to show linked information. We’ve even provided a variety of examples of radial maps. We’ve collected a list of some of our favorite other projects that share our mission of interactive information visualization. But SpicyNodes has several key differences, which you will discover through exploring various nodemaps from the gallery.
- Chinese
- English
- French
- German
- Portuguese
- Russian
- Spanish
Webmasters who want to integrate SpicyNodes into their web sites can either paste a piece of ready-to-use HTML code with an embedded Flash object, or use what are known as widgets — a means by which a user interfaces with an application in a uniform way.
Vendors of content management systems can use SpicyNodes by integrating it into their products. SpicyNodes’ XML-based Application Programming Interface makes it easy to adapt to any CMS implementation.
Not presently, but SpicyNodes will work great with the multi-touch displays. See posts about iPad on our blog
