In my constant pursuit to find new visualization tools I stumbled upon Wordle. While my favorite visualization tools provide a broad range of visualization types, they often require you to upload your dataset which is subsequently accessible by anyone. In contrast, Wordle allows you to paste text, URL’s or a del.icio.us user name in the creation screen and leaves the decision to share your word cloud completely up to you. Wordle also offers a number of fonts, colors and design options so that you can artfully craft the perfect word cloud.
As a numbers person, I struggled with tangible ways to use word clouds. After an hour of testing different options, I came up with a few interesting ways you might use Wordle . As a bonus, I even found a way to incorporate numbers.
1. Bio. If you’re like me and dislike writing your own biography, why not put a new age spin on your personal resume by publishing a Word Cloud Bio. I loaded my resume into Wordle with the following result:
My Professional Word Cloud Bio
2. Demystifying your blog. Find out what you spend the majority of your blog talking about. – does it match your life passion? You might also gauge new blogs you are considering adding to your blog role by typing the URL into Wordle. I was surprised to see how similar my resume and blog are – thankfully my passion and professional life seem aligned (see below).
The Insight Effect Word Cloud
3. Inspiration. Have you book marked a favorite blog, website, speech, movie, music album, or book that motivates and inspires you? Why not load the details into Wordle and create a screen saver or desktop theme that energizes you.
Favorite Quotes
4. Lotto Picks. If you want a new way to pick lotto numbers – try loading the recent winning numbers. I pulled all the winning numbers (up to today) for the Canada Lotto Max, which just started in September 2009. I excluded the Max millions because who wants one million when there’s a jackpot of 50 million!
(Side note: Probability wise, all numbers have an equal chance of being pulled in a lotto draw). Good Luck & if you win using the information feel free to send me royalties!
Lotto Max Winning Numbers
Lucky #17
Leave me a comment with your ideas and experience with Wordle!
the Insight Effect 
What a great resource! This tool is very useful AND fun. It also helps us drill down to the heart of the matter using key words: As an example I used Facebooks recent “Privacy Policy” (see here):
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2107814/Facebook_Privacy_Policy
Interesting result in descending order: “Information Facebook may use.” How fitting!
Thanks Again & Keep the posts coming!
Thanks for the insight Epictetus! Let’s hope the new release of facebook’s privacy policy is less confusing and significantly shorter.
5 of the 6 numbers I play are quite prominent there so i will keep playing.