Using Wordle to create a blogroll cloud for my blog links

Like many other blogs we here at Biomedicine on Display have a long list of (potentially) useful life science and health/medical blog links—all those sites which together constitute the hypertextual inspiration base for our web presence.
It would be great if these could be visualised as a blogroll cloud (like a tag cloud or a category cloud). So far I haven’t seen one, but last night, when I was playing with the new Wordle text cloud generator (see earlier post here), I used it to see what our blogroll would look like in cloud format.
First I created a cloud out of a net list of my 35 favourite blogs (using ~ between the words which is Wordle’s way of keeping words together in sentences):

Then I manipulated the picture a little (literally manually!). By repeating the names of my most-favourite blogs 2, 3 or 5 times I could produce a weight-effect:
Both look great, I think! Much better than most blogrolls I’ve seen so far.
It’s still just a dummy, because at the moment Wordle cannot make the links clickable (or make the size of the blog names correspond to the number of times one had visited the blogs), but I’m sure Jonathan Feinberg (the software engineer who has designed Wordle) can find a solution to that problem with some hard code work.
Then I tried something else. I pasted the whole list of blogs without using the ~ character—i.e., all singular words in all names on our gross list—into Wordle’s input window. This procedure visualised like this:
 
and like this (Wordle has a huge reportoire of fonts, layouts and colours):
  
These word clouds looks nice too, but they are nevertheless disappointing because the gross blog list (below) contains many more words than those that Wordle processed into the single word clouds. For example, the words in Pimm: Partial Immortalization, Bioephemera, The Sterile Eye and many others aren’t there. Apparently, Wordle only accepts rather small chunks of text. Or maybe it has excluded singulars? (Added 21 July: Oops, I had overlooked the ‘maximum words’ function, thanks Jonathan for drawing my attention; see comment below).
Anyway, it’s a fun way of producing a visualised blogroll. And with some added functionalities (e.g., clickability) it could be turned into a useful WordPress widget.
Here’s the raw unassorted gross list (it has been accumulated over some time so there may be some dead links and other inaccuracies as well):
3quarksdaily A Blog Around the Clock A chance to cut is a chance to cure A float floor RN A Healthy Dr. Sam A Hearty Life A k8, a cat, a mission A Natural Scientist A Repository for Bottled Monsters A Somewhat Old, But Capacious Handbag AAGL medical society About a nurse About life with Diabetes Academic blogs Accelerating Future Adam Bosworth’s Weblog Adaptive Complexity Addicted to Medblogs Advanced Technology Advances in the History of Psychology Adventures in Ethics and Science Aetiology Aggravated Doc/Surg Ah yes, Medical School Ain’t chicken Ah yes, Residency AJOB’s Bioethics.net Al Fin All About Me All Blogged Up: A Moof’s Tale All Roads Lead To Oneself Always listen to your pig-puppet Ambulance Driver American Society for Reproductive Medicine Anatomy on the Beach Ancora Imparo And the world Turns Andart Andrewkrueger Ann Myers Medical Center Another room Anti Aging Backboard and Bandaids Backreaction Bakker’s Blog Bayblab Bee Policy Beer with chocolate Belaray Dermatology Betablokker Bibaholic BibMed Blog Big Leather Couch bikers & coffee shops Biocurious Bioephemera Bioethics weblog Biohacking Biology in Science Fiction Biomedbiblog Biomedicine on Display BioPoliticalTimes Biosingularity Bitacora Medica Bloc de Bellvitge Bloc de Farmàcia Blog Award Blog Village Blog, MD Blogborygmi Bloggernity Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting Bohemian Road Nurse Borneo Breezes Botany Photo of the Day Brainblog Brandice.Net BreathingThroughSchool Bright Lights, Cold Steel Brookings’ SciTech Buckeye Surgeon Buridan’s Ass Canadian Cynic Canadian Medicine Cancer Genetics CAP’s Science Progress Carbon-based curiosities Carl Zimmer’s The Loom Catalogue of Organisms Cathy’s Place Ceclia’s Blog at PHD Comics Cells in Culture Chance to Cut and Cure Chaosmachine Charity Doc ChemBark chem-bla-ics Chemforums Chemical blogspace Chemical Musings Chemistryworld ChemJerk ChloroformRag Chrysalis Angel Chymico-Physico Elucidations Circ and Serve Clinical Cases and Images Clinical Evidence, Searching Tidbits, and Other Minutiae Clinical Genetics Blog Cocktail Party Physics Code Blog: Tales of a Nurse Coffee 2 go Cognitive Daily Collective Contemplations Collision detection Complex Medium Conference.archimuse.com Confessions of a Science Librarian cornucopia Corpus Callosum Cosmic Variance Cosmic Variance Counting Sheep Crazy Working Mom Critical Biomass Cron Diary Crushing krisis Cubik’s Rube Curious cat Cut to Cure Davidrothman.net Declan Butler DermDoc Det perfekta tomrummet Dia Diabetes Mine Digital Heritage Digital Pathology Blog Dinosaur Musings Director’s blog (Walters Art Mueum) Disappearing John Disgruntled Julie: A PhD in Progress Dispatches Culture Wars Dispatches from Suburbia DNA direct Doc Around The Clock Doc in the machine Doc Russia Doc’s Girl Doctor Anonymous Doctor David’s Blog Doct
or on Call Dogscatskidslife Dr. Anonymous Dr. Blogstein Dr. Deborah Serani Dr. Dork Dr. Gwenn is in Dr. Petra Boynton Dr. Smak Dr. Val & Voice of Reason Dr. Wes Dream Mom Dreaming and Believing dreaming spirals Eastern blot Echo Doc Effect Measure Efficient Academic eHealth e-Health Tech Eishaz Inner World Electron Blue Elementlist EM Physician EmergencyEM Emergiblog Engadget Enviro Journalism Today Epigenetics News Epistemographer ERnursery ERV Everyday Scientist Everything related to tomography Evolgen Evolving Thoughts Eye on DNA Fairer Science Family Physician and friend Fat and 40 Fat Doctor Fat Doctor FemaleScienceProfessor Fight Aging! Fight Pompe Fighting for Science Fine Art Doctor Fingers And Tubes Fixin healthcare Flip This Body Forging Iron Man Fragments Framing Science Frankie Speaking Frankly Frankie’s Hideout frannycakes Frectis Freelancing Science Fresh Wallaby Juice FriendlyAtheist.com Fumbling towards geekdom Future Derm Future Pundit Geekologie Gene Expression Gene Genie Genetics and Health Genomicron Genomics Revolution Gizmodo Gold Coast IVF Goldston’s Party of One Good Math, Bad Math Grand Rounds Graphite works Greg Laden’s Blog Grunt Doc GuitargirlRN Half Medic HallwayFour Healia Health Blog Health 2.0 blog Health Affairs Blog Health and Longevity Health Blog–from the Wall Street Journal Health by Dr. House Health Care Law Blog Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review Health Care Renewal Health LIS 2.0 Health Management Rx Health n Fitness Health Populi Health Psych Health World Web Health2.info HealthBlawg Healthbolt HealthPolCom Blog HeathDot@ScribeMedia.Org Helmintholog Highlight Health Hippocratech History of Science in
America: News and Views HLA Blogs! Holly Witteman home & business interest homunculus hpb etc. Hype and Hope on stem cells Hypothia I Love Science, Really iBLOGthere4iM ICTconsequences ID Crossroads iHealthBeat I’m A Blogaholic Imaginary Magnitude imamedicalstudent iMechanica In My Humble Opinion In sickness & in health in singulo In the Pipeline Incoherently Scattered Ponderings Infrared Sauna Info Inside Surgery Instapundit integrative medical doctor Internet (Web2.0) et ophtalmologie Intraoporate invincible summers Is it Friday yet? Isle of Kos It shouldn’t happen It’s a Blog Eat Blog World It’s a wonderful life It’s All About the Walls IVF-MD Jacks of Science Jmb John Fleck’s InkStain Journalology Jubujo Juniorprof Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Kevin MD Kisses & compliments Knifeman a/k/a Dr. Shroom KnowBodies Kristin’s Random Adventures Kuriosakabinettet Lab Cat Lacuna Liliae LadyScientist Laelaps Laika’s MedLibLog LawDog Learn to Live Legal medicine Liberating the Literature Librarians’ Rx Life in the country Life in the ED Life of a Lab Rat Life of a Mother Artist Life Sciences Daily Little Bald Doctors Living the Scientific Life Liz&Darrow Logan Lounge Longevity Science Lori Gawdyda’s Medical Librarian blog Lost on the Floor Low Life Lyme Health Machines Like Us Macrocosm Maibach’s Cool Messages Malletrivia Malnatured snay Managed Care Matters March of the Platypi Mark’s Daily Apple Material World Mauigirl Mavistown 3.0 MDOD Med Journal Watch Med School and Beyond Med Valley High Medgadget Medic61 Medical 2.0 Medical News Feeds Medical Quack Medical student blogs Medicine 2.0 Blog Carnival Medicine and Other Stuff Medicine for the Outdoors Medicine in Society Collection: Museum Victoria Meditec Medmusings Medpundit Medrants Med-Source MedWizard:Medicine 2.0 MedWorm Meme Therapy Memoirs of a Skepchick Merely queer leigh Metadatta Mexicomedstudent MHSLA Blog Michael Nielsen Michele Lang – Wicked and Witty Author Microarrays MicrobiologyBytes Midwife with a Knife Migrations Mike’s Weekly Skeptic Rant Milliner’s Dream Mimi Writes MindFull Mining Drug Space MIT’s Science News Tracker Mixed States Monash medical student Monkey Girl Moof Mooney’s The Intersection More random than average Movin’ Meat Mr. Beer Belly Ms-ellisa MSG Msheppard transplant ntwk MSSP Nexus Muffin 53 Museer og digitalisering Museum 2.0 MuseumBlogs.org Musings of a Dinosaur Musings of a Distractible Mind Musings of a Medical Librarian Maven Musings of the Mad Biologist My Biotech Life My MD Journey Nanodot Nanopolitan Nanosingularity Nascent Nature blogs Neil Versel’s Healthcare IT Blog NeoNurseChic Neuropathology blog Neurophil
osophy Ninja Bookworm No More Walls Nobody important Nodal Point Nordhause & Schellenberger’s Breakthrough blog Northmed Not Even Wrong Not Fearing Change Notes from the biomass Notes fron Dr RW Notional Slurry NPR ScienceFriday Podcast Nurse Practitioner News Nurse Quack Nurse Ratched NurseReview.Org Obscure and Confused Ideas Odysseys of George Off The Grid OMG Tuna is Kewl OMMBID blog Omninerd On The Wards Only Connect! Only half nuts Open Objects Open Reading Frame OpenScience Project OpNotes Origins Genome Resources other things amanzi Our Health Circle Our technological future Ouroboros Over my med body! PANDA BEAR, MD Parallel Universes parlancheq Patient Anonymous Patient Education Matters Pearls and Dreams Petri dish Pharma Gazette Pharma Marketing Blog Pharmalot Pharyngula Philosophy of Biology Photoblog-for the dopamine PhysioProf Physorg PI PickledEel Pielke’s Prometheus Pimm-Partial immortalization Pioneering ideas Placebo Journal Blog Play It, Jen PLoS Blog PodunkMemorial Pondering Pikaia Ponderings of a fool Pooflingers Anonymous Post doc ergo propter doc Postgenomics.com power of goo PredictER Pregnant pauses Primordial Blog Primum non nocere Projectories Prometheus Psychology and the Singularity Public Historian Public Rambling Purse Lip Square Jaw Rachel’s Wide World of Lunacy Radiology Picture of the Day Radswiki Blog Ragesoss 2.02 RatBlog Real Climate Recombinants Recursivity redherring Reference Musings Reflections by Dr. Campbell Rejuv-n-Nation Relevant History Repectful Insolence Resident Other Resnick Unplugged Respectful Insolence Responsible Nanotechnology Revkin’s Dot Earth Revolution Health Heart Center Rickety contrivances of doing good Robosingularity Robotic Nation Rojak life Roland Piquepaille’s Technology Trends RSC RTP3.com Runesmith’s Canadian Content Running a hospital Rural Doctoring sandwalk Scalpel or Sword? Scan Man Scan man’s notes Scared to Health Sceptical chymist Scheufele’s NanoPublic Science Base Blog Science blog Science Creative Quarterly Science Daily Science for Kids Science Matters Science Musings Science Nerd Depot Science Notes Science Roll ScienceBlogs ScienceCommunication.org ScienceRoll Scientific activist Scientific Blogging: NCurse Scientifically minded Sciethics Scott Shreeve, MD SeaSpray Second Effort Sentient Developments Sentinel Effect, The Serefraz Sex, Genes & Evolution sexyscience Sharp Brains She Blinded Me With Science! Shrink Rap Shtetl-Optimized Signout Sinking the Iceberg Six Until Me Skeptico Sleep Doctor Smithsonian’s The Gist Social MD Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons Soft Machines Sorting Out Science Spectroscope Stethoscopes and Diapers Stranger fruit Streamor Street Anatomy Studi Galileiani Surgeonsblog Survival Blog for Scientists sutree Suture for a Living Suzy palooza Syaffolee Tales from Health Records Tales from Labor & Delivery Tales from the ER Techmedicine Techno Event Horizon Technology Review Technology Trends Technovelty Tenderbutton The adventures of awesome mom The adventures of b. freret The Angry Medic The Anonymous Medical Student The Beach Bum Report The biotech weblog The Blog that ate Manhattan The Collective Voice The Culture of Chemistry The Daily Transcript The Doctor Blogger The Doctor Weighs In The Dragonfly Initiative The dubious biologist The Evilutionary Biologist The Executioner’s Thong The Filter The Foot Blog The Frame Problem The Frontal Cortex The Futile Cycle The genes Sherpa The Genetic Genealogist The Hampster Wheel The Happy Hospitalist The Healthcare Blog The Heart of the Matter The Inverse Square Blog The Issue-Science & Health The Krafty Librarian The life of a stay at home mom The Lippard Blog The Loom The Missing Link The Mo Show The Mr Science Show The Neural Gourmet The Neurophile The Neurophilosopher’s weblog The OpenScience Project The Ozmosis Blog The Panda’s Thumb The Personal Genome The Pragmatic Caregiver The Regeneration Station The Rising Blogger The Science Creative Quarterly The Scut Report The skeptical alchemist The Sour Dough The Sterile Eye The story of healing The Thoughts of Artemis The Turning Point The Uncredible Hallq The Unexamined Life The view from here The world of nothing worthwhile Thechemblog Theory of Thought Thesis-With Children Think-a-lot Thinking for Free Thoughts from Janitor’s Cupboard Thoughts in a Haystack Three-toed Sloth Tiggers don’t jump Transformation Tracker Trav’s Thoughts Tundra Medicine Dreams Tundra PA Turn You Head and Scoff Unboundedmedicine Uncertain Principles Under the Canopy Underwear Drawer Up from under Urostream Urtog Velcro City Tourist Board Vetenskapsnytt Vitum Medicinus WaitTimes Web 2.0 and Medicine Web 2.Oh…really? Web 3.0 Blog West of the moon What Interests Me What the hell is wrong with you? What You’re Doing Is Rather Desperate What’s New by Bob Park What’s Next in Health When i grow up whistling in the wind White Coat Rants White Coat Underground Why Am I Still Here? Wiki blog Wikizine Wired Medtech Women’s Bioethics Blog Women’s Health News Work In Progress Work of art: raising our son World Changing Wouter on the Web Yetanothermedschoolblog YoungFemaleScientist Zoi-Sci