Google has opened its Public Data Explorer tool to user-uploaded data. You can even ask that your data be included in the public dataset directory, which currently holds 27 datasets, from Australian Population Estimates to World Development Indicators (a subset of WorldBank data) with a host of U.S. data in-between.
You can now use the Public Data Explorer to visualize everything from labor productivity (OECD) to Internet speed (Ookla) to gender balance in parliaments (UNECE) to government debt levels (IMF) to population density by municipality (Statistics Catalonia), with more data being added every week.
[…] We’re making a new data format, the Dataset Publishing Language (DSPL), openly available, and providing an interface for anyone to upload their datasets. DSPL is an XML-based format designed from the ground up to support rich, interactive visualizations like those in the Public Data Explorer. The DSPL language and upload interface are available in Google Labs.
Google is certainly not the first nor only company in the data sharing and visualization space. Mike Melanson at Read Write Web notes that competitors include Amazon’s Public Data Sets, CKAN, Factual and InfoChimps. Big Blue is in the game, too. IBM has hosted public data sets and visualization tools at ManyEyes for several years. Tableau has a public visualization tool (Windows only and no data sharing).
