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.