The most recent mapping software I experimented with was Google Fusion Tables. While still an experimental project, Fusion Tables is meant to make visualization of tables easy. In fact, if you have columns titled “latitude” and “longitude,” it will automatically provide you with a map. Even if you don’t have those columns, it will try to reference your data from any location information it can find (addresses or town names).
How useful is this program though? For a quick and simple visualization it seems fine, but I think its full potential lies in combination with Google Maps API. Without combining this on your website with JavasScript and the API, the customization and functionality of the maps is limited. Their are only a few options for icons, and it appears to be impossible to classify non-numerical data at this point. Hopefully this will be changed in the future, but for now I would recommend people with more complex mapping desires and limited programming skills to hold off. You can see an example of a map I made with it on the front page or below. It only took me a few minutes to put together.
