Here is an Actionscript based mapping framework that was recently released.  It too uses the vanrijkom toolset for accessing shapefiles.  No projection control though.  Via FlowingData.

James Fee brought the Google Visualization API and Google Fusion API to my attention, so I went and checked them out.  The video on the Google Fusion intro page is interesting.  It is all about putting the power to display information in anybody's hand.  Which I guess is a noble aim...  Then I looked the Visualization API and immediately looked at the mapping examples, here and here.  There area acouple of things wrong with these maps.  One, for a visualization of this kind, shouldn't they have used a better projection.  We are stuck, yet again, with Mercator.  In this context it is completely inappropriate, yada yada yada.  Second, they aren't really different kinds of mapping, but are just a choropleth map.  I'm not even sure what the maps are supposed to be mapping.  I presume generic information..."popularity???"  Choropleths are meant to map derived data.  So it shouldn't be popularity, but maybe popularity per 1000.  The intensity map just shows population.  It is the same problem, like if they were to map deaths.  The population and death map would theoretically look exactly the same.  Anyway, this is sort of a cost-benefit analysis.  Does the cost of putting the simplicity of creating the visualizations in the hands of everyday internet users (the ensuing creation of bad and ineffective maps) outweight the benefits of giving the power to create and visualize information?  I think that google could have provided a few fixes that do not impact the user in anyway to make their visualizations more appropriate.

You might say that the designers and journalists and whoever creates infographics for print will still (hopefully) create approrpiate visualizations.  But, a lot of people are getting their info from crap blogs like mine rather than reliable sources.  Anyway, this is just the same debate over and over again about the "cult of the amateur" and whether it is good or bad.

 There was another thing that I found interesting in Fee's post.  He described the google maps api's introduction of queries, comparing them to other GIS related queries - "Now of course this isn’t paleo-type spatial queries, just simple stuff that solve 80% of all queries you’d need to complete."  To me paleo refers to very old, or even primitive.  I find it confusing to refer to GIS techniques as paleo, when the mapping and spatial parts of the Web 2.0 (neogeography) are much simpler, and less advanced than the older stuff.  Anyway, I'm not going to debate the appropriateness of the terms paleogeography and neogeography because that would just get me stuck in the mud.  Plus I like the term Neogeography, but maybe my head is just in the cloud.  Ooops, should have put a pun warning in front of that.

 

Here is a Javascript library for thematic mapping with Google Maps, via Flowing Data.  Haven't tried to use it, but it looks really nice.

Interesting entry from Axis Maps.  Whether you agree or disagree with it, Streetview still doesn't resolve the issue of temporality with maps.  A streetmap is frozen in the time of when it's data was created.  Updating spatial data probably is much quicker than rephotographing all the streets again...

I actually have been planning a separate post on circular cartograms for a while now, but need to finish some things up on it (which may take a while).  In the meantime, this came across my "desk" and thought I would share.  It is a circular cartogram infographic produced by The Guardian.  Now, the blog Junk Charts generally takes offense at anything classified as a "bubble chart."  This isn't a bubble chart, but a circular cartogram.  For the most part, Junk Charts follows Tufte's self-sufficiency principal.  Personally, I think circular cartograms may be used to great affect when used appropriately, and surprisingly well for certain time-series information.  For example, with the NYTimes olympic medals map.  If we ignore the labeling on this cartogram for a moment, then what this is trying to show does work on some level:  distribution of largest emitters of CO2.  Now add the labels back.  WTF?  What in the world were they thinking?  It doesn't make any sense.  They've mixed ranking with actual CO2 emissions!  There isn't even an attempt at different typeface or size to distinguish these.  So yes, in my opinion this is a 'junk chart.'  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm no infographic expert and make my fair share of poorly constructed maps :), but it is really surprising that a professional organization would make something so poorly.  Either way, I like the effort of using a cartogram, and I still like circular cartograms as a communication tool.

A little better job on this version though, and easier to distinguish between rank and emission.