Enabling users to create dynamically updated data sets from a variety of sources

Dec 15, 2009 16:22 GMT  ·  By
The new Google Fusion Tables API enables users to create dynamically updated data sets from a variety of sources
   The new Google Fusion Tables API enables users to create dynamically updated data sets from a variety of sources

Google is enhancing its recently introduced Fusion Tables data management tool, which is labeled as a Labs project, with the release of a dedicated API. The API will enable users with dynamic data sets to update them without having to log into the Fusion Tables site or having to manually add the new data. This way the various visualizations and tables the users have created will always have the latest data available.

“In Fusion Tables, you can share all or part of a table with other people... By merging your data with other people's shared tables, you can see the whole picture in one place, discuss the data in embedded comments, and mark up the data with your collaborators,” Anno Langen, Jayant Madhavan and Rebecca Shapley from the Google Fusion Tables Team wrote.

“With the new Fusion Tables API, you can update and query your dataset in Fusion Tables programmatically, without ever logging in to the Fusion Tables website. The API means you can import data from whatever data source you may have, whether a text file or a full-powered data base,” they added.

Google launched Fusion Tables as a cloud-based tool for visualizing, merging and collaborating on data regardless of its origins. It originally enabled users to upload tabular data sets or use the public ones already available, select the data relevant to them in a particular case and mix and match with other data from any other source to create a meaningful new data set that they could then visualize using the Google Visualization API.

The new Fusion Tables API enables users to retrieve the data from a much wider variety of sources and, more importantly, they can update dynamic data automatically with practically no user intervention. The visualizations or data can then be embedded on any blog or website making available to the world. Another interesting aspect are the collaboration tools, which enable multiple users to work on the same data sets in real time.

An example use of Google Fusion Tables