Spatial Data: Post II

For more modern spatial info, check out zillow.com. This is a reality site founded by the creators of expedia.com. The site provides nationwide "Zestimates" of home values. They've organized as much publicly available housing data from local and national sources and they basically run a spatial-statistics algorithm to generate an estimate of housing value (what the house should / could sell for today). Now remember these estimates are results of some sort of equation (based on public data) so it's not like a realtor's suggested price or a bank's appraisal. None the less it's an interesting use of spatial data that is easily accessible.

I've mentioned ESRI in previous posts (they're the Microsoft of the GIS software). They've recently released a beta-version of ArcWeb Explorer, which will eventually become a more robust GIS package. Right now the only really unique functionality is the ability to upload an xcel table and geo-code your data. It can read a table with some type of locational info (either x,y coordinates or street address info) and place them on a map. They also provide some different legend/style types for your maps. It's not to much right now, but this type of online software suite is probably the wave of the future. That's all for now.