This is absolutely fantastic news. Data visualization is one of the great promises of our unfolding information revolutions.

I have also been fascinated by what choices Mr. Page was going to bring, when he described Google's future with fewer arrows, but more wood behind them. Add to this, that they are now aware of their 'platform' deficiency, it's going to be incredibly enlightening to watch how Google allocates that wood to increase the power of their individual arrows.

It appears that Ripples is a great start on both the promise of better information, and the promise of a higher caliber platform.

Interesting but a good example of how Google+ is made for geeks, by geeks. Social is about mom and dad and my sister, not me. I get this, it's cool, but it's confusing and useless to them. It seems to me Google keeps missing the point and as long as that happens they simply won't be able to pull people off Facebook.

The tool isn't so much for the individual user but for the marketers and content creators that are on the platform and will join in the future.

Hopefully people start to realize that Google+ isn't about Facebook....it continues to be a great social layer over everything Google does.

If the "point" of social networks was simply viewed in the narrow sense of Facebook, then Twitter wouldn't be around either.

Looks like they're using some kind of sunflower phyllotaxis for placement. Especially obvious when you zoom in.