BoogyWoogy — an homage to Piet Mondrian — lets you explore Green Common's collection of resources as serendipitiously as you would like.
Begin by entering a term to search for. After that, clicking on a filled-in square will fetch items that are like it. As you mouse over squares, details about the item will be displayed to the right, with a link to the item at Green Commons. (Press the Enter key to freeze the screen if you're having trouble getting info about the square you want.)
The Serendipity Slider lets you specify how decide what "like it" means. At one end, you get items within the same official subject. At the other, you get items just barely related, or perhaps not related at all. Here are the options:
STRICTEST: Items with the same subject STRICT: Keyword search for first subject. SORTOF: keyword search for the last subject WILDCARD: A keyword search on the first real word of the title.
BoogyWoogy is intended just as a demonstration of a little of the power of the Green Commons API, the server technology that's underneath BoogyWoogy's too-bright colors. You can find out more about that API here here [TK]. (And please note that this app was written by a hobbyist non-developer. Don't judge me! :)
BoogyWoogy is an Open Source project (as is gCommons). It builds on an idea from Jeff Goldenson. If you hit bugs (you will) or have suggestions, send an email to me at david@weinberger.org. Thanks!
-- David Weinberger Sept. 2017