Google is upping the ante again in its quest to make data more accessible and easier to work with. The company has launched search capability for public data, and they've kicked off by providing access to unemployment and population statistics. Type "Williamson County population" into Google, for example, and then click on the chart at the top of the search results. It will bring you to an interactive map that shows population change in Williamson County over time and allows you to compare Williamson County to other counties in the U.S. in a matter of seconds.
Add this new service to a growing list of tools like Gapminder and Many Eyes and you get the feeling that we're on the cusp of a giant leap forward in how people access and use public data to communicate. At the very least, presentations are getting a whole lot easier.
Brian Kelsey
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I found that last week! Isn't that interactive graph sweet? I look forward to them adding more data sets.
ReplyDeleteI discovered that by googling "West Virginia population" last week. Not sure why I was looking for that data. At any rate, the interactive graph is pretty sweet. Will be nice as they add new datasets.
ReplyDeleteThis is very useful quick tool to be utilized. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
ReplyDelete