As a demo of the ArcGIS API for Flex, ESRI has a new page that lets you create an embeddable/shareable map of demographic data by US county. Only seven datasets available now:
- Median Household Income
- Population Change 2000-2009
- Population Density (per sq. mile)
- Median Home Value
- Unemployment Rate
- Average Household Size
- Median Age
Map creation is trivially easy – select the demographic dataset from a dropdown, zoom the map to the desired extents, set a map size in pixels, and you’re done; links to a map with your parameters, and code for an embeddable map, are generated automatically. Here’s an embedded map, scrollable and zoomable; unemployment rate is the defaultdataset, but you can choose other sets with the dropdown menu at upper right:
More datasets would be nice, as would control over colors and ranges …
Have you tired the ESRI app for iPad? I think it has a lot of potential but in its current state it’s a bit bland. I think they need a way to easily access free data and layers directly from the iPad to get mainstream users. The second they get mainstream users is when the big dogs start looking to buy old Esri!
Don’t have an iPad (or iPhone), so haven’t tried the ESRI app; as I understand, it’s mainly a viewer for online data. I think Android has a better chance of succeeding in this space because of its open nature, but only time will tell.
As long as Dangermond is around, I doubt ESRI will be sold; it’s made him rich, and he seems to be happy owning and running the company.