San Francisco — Search engine titan Google on Monday unveiled its latest visualization venture from Google Labs experiment called Google Public Data Explorer that empowers people to explore various public data and create their own interactive charts and graphs — from unemployment in the U.S. to education statistics in California, which can be embedded in Web pages.
Google Public Data Explorer depends upon the visualization application that Google obtained when it came into possession of Trendalyzer in 2007.
“With the Data Explorer, you can combine data using line graphs, bar graphs, maps and bubble charts. The visualizations are dynamic, so you can view them move over time, change topics, highlight different entries and change the scale,” Jürgen Schwärzler, a statistician for Google’s Public Data team, wrote in a blog post. “Once you have a chart ready, you can easily share it with friends or even embed it on your own website or blog.”
However, now before any of you become obsessed with Privacy issue – this is not your personal stats and online data – it is more generic public information. Here is the selection from the release post last year.
“We have just unveiled a new search feature that makes it easy to find and compare public data. So for example, when comparing Santa Clara county data to the national unemployment rate, it becomes clear not only that Santa Clara’s peak during 2002-2003 was really dramatic, but also that the recent increase is a bit more drastic than the national rate.”
Here is an example of what can be done using Google Public Data Explorer:
The service currently collects from 13 data sets, including retail sales in the U.S., sexually transmitted diseases in the U.S., cancer cases in the U.S., and minimum wage in Europe, and gives them a visual interface with animated charts and maps.
“As the charts and maps animate over time, experiencing the changes in the world become easier to understand,” Google explains in the description. “You do not have to be a data expert to navigate between different views, make your own comparisons, and share your findings.”
“Students, journalists, policy makers and everybody else can play with the tool to create visualizations of public data, link to them, or embed them in their own webpages,” says Google. “Embedded charts and links can update automatically so you are always sharing the latest available data.”
The following slide-show guides you through how to use Public Data Explorer:
There are around six fascinating examples available on the product page for you to play around with, and get a feel for how the Public Data Explorer works.
Google has also integrated five new public data sources to existing data from the World Bank, the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, and the U.S. Census Bureau. New stats now come from: the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD); the California Department of Education; Eurostat; the U.S. Center for Disease Control; and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The technology can also be applied to power Google Chart Tools, a cover-up moniker for the Google Chart API and the Google Visualization API, which can be used to add charts and graphs to Web sites.
The introduction of Public Data Explorer is the creation of Google’s effort to provide visual support to search queries. In April 2009, Google introduced a public data search feature that allows users compare public data via search. Google Public Data Explorer uses the same line chart visualization as public data search, and Google plans to make more data searchable in the future, the company said.
Both services are part of Google’s acquisition of Trendalyzer in 2007.
“The Google Public Data tool in Labs employs some of the Trendalyzer technology also used in the Motion Chart gadget available in the Google Visualization API and Google Docs,” Google said in its FAQ.
This video below gives you a quick summary on how it works: