An infield fly for mashups

Microsoft goes to beta with Popfly and I managed to create a bubble list of my FaceBook friends (after navigating the one time code minefield).  For my money, the spinning red cube still does not quite match the clean approach of Yahoo! Pipes.  What  .. IS ..  nice to see out of Microsoft, however, is some movement on the display front.  Of particular interest to me are display elements like the bar graph.  This smacks of business intelligence, no?

So, with Popfly does come an acknowledgment that visuals + data intersection makes the end result more interesting.  Maps are fun (we like them) and combined feeds as feeds are a necessary foundation but increasingly diverse visuals should drive increasing value.  It is certainly time to think beyond the “feed” as a great mashup source and outcome.  In fact, visual diversity is what is appealing to me about other approaches like the highly visual AlchemyPoint.  In fact, I will continue to stand in the box and take a few swings at strong visuals and mixed data streams and am happy to see that Microsoft is swinging away as well.  Batter up!