Online Map Platform enables on-the-fly access to datasets.
Press Release Summary:
Pushpin(TM) online mapping platform offers users access to Pushpin Collections, which contain libraries of name-brand mappable data pertaining to market segmentation, lifestyle, consumer expenditure, demographic data, and geographic boundary data. Together, map services programming interface and data libraries allow web developers to enhance draggable mapping applications with information from Claritas, ESRI, NAVTEQ, and other sources.
Original Press Release:
Pushpin(TM) is First Online Map Platform to Give Fast, On-The-Fly Access to Massive Library of Mappable Data Including ESRI, Claritas and NAVTEQ® Catalogs
LOS ANGELES, April 17 -- Placebase, Inc. today announced the availability of Pushpin Collections, a massive library of name-brand mappable data offered through its Pushpin online mapping platform. Examples of available items include market segmentation, lifestyle, consumer expenditure, and demographic data, as well as geographic boundary data. Pushpin Collections is the first data library accessible on the fly through a map services programming interface and also the first to include data priced by transaction or per seat. As a result, Pushpin Collections allows Web developers to easily enhance their fast, draggable mapping applications with data from Claritas, ESRI, NAVTEQ and other sources, without the usual up-front cost and complexity of data acquisition and integration.
"Data from Pushpin Collections makes it very easy to evolve beyond the 'thumbtacks on a map' cliche you see all over the Web," said Jaron Waldman, President and CEO of Placebase. "With Collections, any Web developer can build fast, affordable mapping applications that offer any size audience timely, highly detailed datasets, nationwide to the block-group level."
The Pushpin platform thematically shades geographic areas on the fly by accessing data from Pushpin Collections -- or in fact any data at all. For example, a Pushpin map shaded with block-group data from Pushpin Collections can help home buyers get a very precise feel for neighborhoods they aren't familiar with. This lets them save time by avoiding trips to houses that don't meet their location criteria.
There are many business applications as well. For example, retailers and product marketers can use Pushpin Collections to show various categories of consumer expenditure by tinting block groups with colors keyed to spending ranges. This permits easy visualization of spatial trends in data, which can help increase the quality of decisions.
Pushpin also has area demarcations (geographic boundaries) on tap that aren't ordinarily found on online maps. Pushpin Collections offers easy access to real estate lot outlines (parcels), school districts, block groups and many other widely applicable boundaries. In addition, Pushpin supports customer-specific boundaries, such as sales territories.
Pushpin Collections also includes a POI catalog from NAVTEQ with millions of entries that can be mapped and filtered by category with just a few lines of code via the Pushpin map services interface. The Pushpin platform supports high speed display, filtering, and toggling of hundreds of times as many point markers as competitive online map platforms, so Pushpin developers need not worry about overwhelming a user's browser with too many markers.
Availability
Pushpin Collections will be available on April 16, 2007 and will be introduced at the Location Intelligence Conference in San Francisco. Access is priced by map view, and varies depending on data licensor. Many Collections data layers are included at no additional cost, while others range to $0.02 per view with discounts available for high volumes.
About Pushpin
Pushpin(TM)(http://www.pushpin.com/) is an application platform for advanced mapping that offers a user experience identical to that of platforms principally aimed at consumers. Pushpin's advanced capabilities include hosting of large numbers of static map layers, display of thousands of markers rather than dozens, and dynamic rendering of shaded thematic maps reflecting thousands of data variables. Pushpin provides name-brand mappable data via API, including demographic and lifestyle indicators from ESRI, and Claritas and parcel boundaries from NAVTEQ.
About Placebase
Since its founding in 2001, Placebase, Inc. has been creating hosted platforms that display highly sophisticated interactive maps in ordinary Web browsers. The company's customers include both small and large organizations, including UCLA and the Brookings Institution. Placebase is an ongoing developer of Fannie Mae Foundation's DataPlace(TM), the most feature-rich mapping application currently available on the Web (http://www.dataplace.org/). More information about Placebase can be found at http://www.placebase.com/.
Placebase and Pushpin are trademarks of Placebase, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
CONTACT: Joshua Weinberg of Digital Life PR, +1-415-777-3339, joshua@DLifepr.com, for Placebase, Inc.
