This Philly dev’s ‘data documentary’ on WWII went viral

Mt. Airy’s Neil Halloran launched his data documentary on those who died during World War II on Memorial Day and in the last two-and-a-half weeks, it has logged 4 million views, plus shoutouts from outlets like Gizmodo and The Daily Beast.
Big names like cognitive scientist Steven Pinker and former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki even gave it some social media love.

Can data be emotionally gripping, visually stunning, world-view-changing? Don’t miss @neilhalloran‘s Fallen of WWII https://t.co/rb379Xyov9

— Steven Pinker (@sapinker) May 31, 2015

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Watch it below, or visit the site. (Halloran also does a breakdown of his first million views here.)

Halloran built the project almost completely with JavaScript, using WebGL.
The Penn grad moved from Austin two years ago to be closer to his family.
“We are so happy to be back, and Philly is a much more techy / cool city than I expected – and that’s coming from a guy who’s been in booming ATX for a decade,” he wrote in an email.
He’s also working on a federal budget visualization.