For National Geographic Channel’s upcoming high-profile premiere, “Breakthrough”, a six episode mini-series covering the latest advances in science and medicine, We Are Social NY wanted to create a socially-driven experience that showcased the volume of conversation around each episode’s topics.
So we created the “Breakthrough” Heat Map:
Using social listening, we found there are millions of tweets about the shows’ topics annually, and wanted to create an experience that reflected just that. We partnered with CartoDB, a data visualization startup, to create the heat map. The map is an interactive global conversation tracker, which aggregates tweets about each of the show’s episode topics, and uses Twitter’s geo-tagging capabilities to show their origin. The map updates in real-time, displaying tweets from the prior hour, and enabling viewers to engage with individual tweets.
To create the map, our Research & Insight team created queries around each episode’s theme, scientific partners, and directors. Each episode takes an in-depth look at scientific breakthroughs as they unfold, across topics such as: Pandemics, Cyborgs, Memory, the Aging Brain, Water Apocalypse and Energy on the Edge. Each groundbreaking episode is also directed by A-List talent such as Ron Howard, Paul Giamatti, Angela Bassett, Brett Ratner, Peter Berg, and Akiva Goldsman.
