This from the Census Bureau:

Enhanced American FactFinder (AFF) Comments Requested

The U.S. Census Bureau is enhancing the current American FactFinder (AFF) to add features and improve its functionality.

As users of our data, we value your input and want the enhanced AFF to meet as many of your needs as possible so that you can easily access and use data available at the Census Bureau. Therefore, we would like your input about the new system.

We have identified a number of improvements which are described in the link below. Please review them and then provide up to five additional items you would like to see incorporated into the new system. (Note: The survey will be available for comments beginning today, March 10 - March 31, 2008.) Given the limited resources available for enhancing the AFF, the Census Bureau may not be able to implement all the suggestions.

https://questionweb.com/63144/

In an effort to reach as many users as possible, please forward this information to your colleagues and others who use data from the Census Bureau.

Thanks for your time and input as we work together to make the AFF a more efficient, dynamic, and interactive data access and dissemination system.

*******************************************
Nancy M. Gordon
Associate Director for Strategic Planning
and Innovation
U.S. Census Bureau
301-763-2126 (Office)
301-763-8150 (Fax)

Forbes has awarded EconomicIndicators.gov one of its “Best of the Web” awards. As Forbes explains, the government site provides an invaluable service to the public for accessing U.S. economic data:

This site is maintained by the Economics and Statistics Administration and combines data collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, like GDP and net imports and exports, and the Census Bureau, like retail sales and durable goods shipments. The site simply links to the relevant department’s Web site. This might not seem like a big deal, but doing it yourself -- say, trying to find retail sales data on the Census Bureau’s site -- is such an exercise in futility that it will convince you why this portal is necessary.

Yet the Bush administration has decided to shut down this site because of “budgetary constraints,” effective March 1.

(From economicindicators.gov) Due to budgetary constraints, the Economic Indicators service will be discontinued effective March 1, 2008.

Economic Indicators.gov is brought to you by the Economics and Statistics Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Our mission is to provide timely access to the daily releases of key economic indicators from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Here's a cross-section of the data available:

Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services | Advance Report on Durable Goods | Construction Put in Place | Corporate Profits | Current Account Balance (International Transactions) | Gross Domestic Product | Housing Vacancies and Homeownership | Manufacturer's Shipments, Inventories, and Orders | Manufacturing and Trade: Inventories and Orders | Manufacturing and Trade: Inventories and Sales | Monthly Wholesale Trade | New Residential Construction | New Residential Sales | Personal Income and Outlays | Quarterly Financial Report | Quarterly Services | Retail E-Commerce Sales | U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services | U.S. International Transactions |

*sigh*

[Thanks ThinkProgress.org]

In the early days of the web, TerraFly.com from Florida International University was super cool.

Using TerraFly you could virtually fly over the United States using USGS imagery. This feature is still available.

Well 7 or so years have passed and the imagery, well, it's everywhere and in some cases better.

However, this free service still as one very cool and very useful feature, gobs of local data.

From Census info to local hotels to fires, it's in Terrafly.

Give it a try.

1) Go to TerraFly

2) Enter in an address or just a Zip and make sure your pop-up blocker is off.

3) Wait for a couple of two new windows to open.

4) Review imagery. Now, click on a specific point on the image.

5) A new window will open with filled with local data. If you clicked a few blocks away some of the numbers and items would be different.

Here's what a page for a specific address looks like for a spot in Chicago.

Cool!

From the news release:

The Census Bureau today reported that a file containing limited respondent information on 302 households, commingled with fictitious test records, was improperly posted on one of the agency’s externally accessible servers in violation of strict agency policies regarding the protection of respondent information. The file was immediately removed. No Social Security numbers were contained in the files and the Census Bureau has no evidence that any respondent data were misused.

“As soon as we learned of the improper posting, we moved quickly to fix the problem. We immediately shut down the site and began an investigation,” said Census Director Charles Louis Kincannon.