There is a chart called “Evolution of Privacy on Facebook” going around on the web. The chart made by Matt Mckeon, a developer in IBM’s visual communications lab has created quite a stir in the interwebs. You can a small animated version of that chart below:
While Matt made a few mistakes with the chart, I think this is a stunning way to depict how facebook privacy policies have changed since 2005.
(How to read the above chart: It is radar-like chart, with logarithmic scale for spoke axis. The concentric circles depict number of people – inner most is you, then your friends, friends’ friends, entire facebook and entire internet. Privacy is measured on 9 areas – Name, Picture, Demographics, Extended Profile Data, Friends, Networks, Wall posts, Photos, Likes of you. A portion of the radar is shaded blue if that information is available to that portion by default.
For eg. in 2005 what you liked (likes) is known only to you. But, by 2010 entire internet can know what you liked.
Also, the data is based on Matt’s observations. More…)
I liked this chart and challenged myself to build the same in excel. Then as I was exploring the data (hidden inside the source code of his visualization), I had a better idea. “Why not make a panel chart“.
So I made this,
Evolution of Privacy Policies on Facebook
[click here for a larger version]
How to read this chart?
Each panel depicts how privacy policies have changed for one area of privacy since 2005 to 2010. So, for eg. if you are looking at the “Name” panel,
- Your Name was visible only to 1000 people in 2005 but in 2010, Entire internet (1.8 Billion) can see your name on Facebook.
- The dull gray color portion shows entire Internet population (it grew from 1B in 2005 to 1.8B in 2010).
- Red color portion shows how much of internet population can get your data from Facebook.
- The y-axis is log 10 scale, meaning each increment in y-axis value is actually 10 times more than previous value.
- The 3 lines indicate your friends, network and entire face book users respectively. Facebook users is shown on top in black color.
How is this chart made?
- After downloading the source code of original visualization by Matt, I just copied the data points from code to excel.
- Then I cleaned and transposed the data so that area charts can be made.
- The chart panels are combo-charts with both areas (red and gray portions) and lines (facebook, network, friend counts).
- Once made the first chart, I just duplicated it 8 more times and changed source points. (press CTRL+D to duplicate).
- A little bit of alignment and formatting to make it look clean and simple. [chart alignment tip].
Known issues in this chart:
- The horizontal axis (dates) are not equally spaced. The measurement times and accuracy are unknown.
- I am not 100% sure if areas are a good way to depict such data. But they seem ok to me.
Download the Excel File:
Click here to download the excel file [Excel 2007 version here] with facebook privacy policies excel panel chart. Play with it a bit to understand how it works.
How would you improve or visualize such data?
I used time as the axis and privacy areas as panels since the message is “how privacy policies have changed since 2005”. But I am sure you would love to explore this data in a different way. Go ahead and get the download file and make your own charts. Then share them using comments.
Also, suggest alterations or your impressions on this chart. Discuss.
22 Responses to “Formula Forensic No 019. Converting uneven Text Strings to Time”
Why not let the TIME function take care of the math:
=TIME(LEFT(TEXT(A1,"000000"),2),MID(TEXT(A1,"000000"),3,2),RIGHT(TEXT(A1,"000000"),2))
I was going to point out the same thing, except to note that useing the time function and doing the divide method are not interchangeable.
I have spent hours investigating a spreadsheet working with a couple of years worth of hourly data, and found that the reason things weren't working is because the rounding on the divide method is only close to the correct time values. In order to have it work for comparisons, (like sub-totaling by time value, or pivoting) you MUST use the TIME function.
Great use of the TEXT function, Hui. I will be using this concept for sure.
Why not just.
=TEXT(A1,"00\:00\:00")*1
Regards
Elegant!
Hi Elias,
I tried to use your formula. But, it doesn't seem to work for me. I am getting an error message "The formula you typed contains an error". It seems I have the problem in using \: in the format. How can I overcome this?
Thanks
Manick, it isn't the /: that causes the problem. If you copy/paste it, you're getting “'s instead of the actual quotation marks that Excel uses. Change the quotation marks by deleting from the pasted formula and retype them.
Hi Manick...
use this alternate formula :
=1*TEXT(A1,"00"":""00"":""00")
note twice double quote each side of :
@Manick,
Did you copy the formula and pasted in Excel or did you typed? Also, do you use , or ; as separator of arguments?
Regards
@Elias: I had no problem using your formula, in fact, I have used your method to convert a number such as 20120419 to an Excel date using =TEXT(A1,"0000\/00\/00")*1. Thanks for posting.
@Joe: For date convertion you can use this as well.
=TEXT(A1,"00-00-00")*1
Regards
Sweet! It appears this also works with =TEXT(A1,"0-00-00")*1. I come from the old days when you counted every byte. I also like to try an make formulas as small as possible for the fun of it 🙂
Elias's suggestion is the simplest, but here is yet another way with TIME and MOD functions...
=TIME(MOD(A2/10000,100),MOD(A2/100,100),MOD(A2,100))
Since the seconds appear to always be 0, why not simply the input to minutes and above and save yourself the trouble of typing those zeroes...
0 => 0:00
1 => 1:00
10 => 10:00
100 => 1:00:00
etc.
Then just use this formula...
=TEXT(A1,"0\:00\:")*1
@ Rick, the numbers to convert are no typed, they are imported. Then your formula will return the wrong result.
Regards.
Hmm! My formula lost some backslash-zero combinations (two of them to be exact). The formula was supposed to be this...
=TEXT(A1,"0\:00\:\zero\zero")*1
where the words "zero" should actually be the number 0. Another way to write the formula is this...
=TEXT(A1,"0\:00\:""00""")*1
Hi Master,
While writing the formulae you have considered only upto "seconds factor" . I think you should take the centi-seconds factor also to achieve best results. Please look into it and rectify the problem...?
For Example.
In horse racing timings are noted in minute, seconds and centi-seconds, like if a horse finished in 70 seconds over a scurry of 1200 metres, is noted as 1.10 min. Nowadays it is noted in centi-seconds everywhere, like 70.00 if you want to convert it to centi seconds (should multiply by 100) = 7000 centi seconds. If you put this figure into your formula as a general number (7000) it will return as 1:10:00. As per your formula, it should be taken as 1 hour 10 seconds 0 minutes. However for a racing enthusiast like me it can be taken as 1 minute 10 seconds also.
Just look what happens if we race goers use this figure as 7000 centi seconds in your formulae, it will correctly show as 1 minute 10 seconds(?) Suppose a horse finishing over a 1200m in 70.60 seconds or in racing terms written as 1.10.60 mins, where 1 minute 10 seconds, & 60 centi-seconds can be counted as 7060, if you put this figure in the formula it will return as 1 minute 11 seconds, that is correct.
My point is if you can incorporate Centi Seconds in the formulae, it would be of great help to us also.
Thanks and regards.
Rajagopal (Mumbai)
Awesome techniques !
I tried with 235960 just to see if it will fail but this is great.
Although a little longer, this too work:
=CHOOSE(LEN(A2);A2/(24*3600);A2/(24*3600);LEFT(A2;1)/(24*60) + RIGHT(A2;2)/(24*3600);LEFT(A2;2)/(24*60) + RIGHT(A2;2)/(24*3600);LEFT(A2;1)/24 + MID(A2;2;2)/(24*60) + RIGHT(A2;2)/(24*3600);LEFT(A2;2)/24 + MID(A2;3;2)/(24*60) + RIGHT(A2;2)/(24*3600))
Converting uneven Text Strings to Time I have imported some data that comes in as a number that I need to convert to h:mm.
Just come across this while googling
find interesting challenge and come up with this
=TEXT(TEXT(SUBSTITUTE(A1,RIGHT(A1,1),""),"000000"),"00\:00\:00")
I need to convert a string of numbers representing average minutes, to reflect correct time values. For example, the numbers below currently represent 5.79 minutes, 15.82 minutes, etc.
I need to convert these values to their correct corresponding value within time parameters. So 5.79 would be something close to 5 minutes and 45 seconds.
5.79
15.82
3.92
12.40
6.70
3.62
I know there has to be a way to compute this in Excel, it can do anything, I believe!
Thank you for any and all assistance~
@Renee... You can use a formula like this. Assuming A1 has the minutes.seconds,
=INT(A1) + MOD(A1, 1)*0.6
If you want to see it in 5 minutes 45 seconds format, use
=INT(A1) & " mins " & ROUND(MOD(A1, 1)*0.6,2) & " secs"