Survivor: Flash Powered Polling

You may not watch, let alone care, about the fourth installment of CBS's reality show Survivor, but CBS has done a marvelous job using Flash as a voting application on their Survivor 4 web site. Every week, viewers can vote for their favorite contestants and who they believe will be the sole survivor. Contestant's popularity and probability of winning fluctuate with every episode, and Flash presents the ever-changing data with an elegance that would make Tufte proud.

What's truly interesting is that the site began collecting viewer data before the first episode aired. Clicking on "Pre Show" shows how contestants were judged purely on face value, with a couple of people sinking like a rock after opening their mouths on television.