Those that are skimming this newsletter are going to be really sorry they skimmed if they skipped over our Site Of The Week this week. It’s completely useless but fun – and very intriguing in its own way.
Wordle generates “word clouds” – which, I think, is cool-speak for a bunch of words randomly aligned in a pattern with the most frequently used words appearing in different sized text based on their frequency. And, yes! yes! I know – it makes no sense and it’s an utter waste of time but so is viewing campaign ads or voting for your favorite crooked politician. Ahem…
Anywhale, I took a paragraph from one of my own personal favorite rants “Pittsburgh” (I love the comments people sent in!) and pasted it in the gizmo on Wordle and here’s one of the “word clouds” I got:
That, my friends is a word cloud created by pasting one paragraph from the infamous “Pittsburgh” rant. Now, you know. And now, you can amaze your friends by pasting (or typing) any blob of text you want into the gizmo at Wordle and make your own word cloud. If you don’t like your first result, click “Randomize” and you’ll get a new word cloud based on the text you entered.
Since this site is a waste-of-time but fun – and most of your friends have never heard of word clouds – you’ll probably spend hours here wasting time and sending worthless, but cute, word clouds to your friends. I’m sure they’ll be as amazed as you are right now, just itching to go make their own. Are we promoting something that will waste your time? Of course! We all need a break from our busy lives – besides you gotta love coolspeak!
Before we let you go play, it’s only fair that we let the developer of the site have a word with you:
“Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.”
OK. Now we know you’re just busting at the chops to run off and play with our Site Of The Week, “Wordle”. So, go do it! What are you waiting for? A link?
Woe is me! I read your Thursday message in the wee hours on Friday… It is now 8:00 AM! I have lost several hours…but pleasantly. Thank you for the unique tool and the info about this Wordle website. I will thank them too, as well as check out any of their other offers.
Indebted to you for many great finds. Thanks so much.
Wordle is fun but not useless! I use it to make Birthday cards and posters. Love it!
The big four is not our term…it’s one of the commenters terms.
This is so neat,but how does one email it to someone. I have no tabs etc to do anything like that. The only ones there are to change color,font etc. Thanks