Treemap***** (1) - A brilliant GUI to huge databases

One of the best ways to look at complicated data is the Treemap, a concept by developed by Ben Shneiderman (during the 1990s), that deserves a lot more attention than it has gotten so far. We probably wouldn't be drowning in tag clouds nowadays, if the Treemap had received a little more recognition in Web 2.0 circles. It seems that the original code is still nurtured at the University of Maryland, where it's available for licensing.
If Shneiderman is Treemap's god, than the brilliant designer Marcos Weskamp is Treemap's prophet, and the Hive Group are Treemap's evangelists. Although the concept clearly delivers huge advantages in delivering superior GUIs to huge databases, none of the people or entities mentioned above have been very successful in bringing it to the market.
Developments have been slow or non-existent since 2004. Marcos Weskamp doesn't seem to worry about this at all. He went back to art school, and hasn't been very active on the web for the past 2 years. Shneiderman now is a technical advisor for the Hive Group, but Hive don't seem to be extremely successful in selling the concept since I first spotted them (I remember they had many more interesting demos on their website 2 years ago).
In the next postings I will go through the published portfolios of the people and entities mentioned above.
By the way - don't miss this dynamic animation of variant Treemap grids.