One of the few companies spending its energy only on providing a great Web Map API is Placebase. Tomorrow the company announces some new features of its Pushpin offering. (You recall Pushpin - like Google Maps, but fewer restrictions on use?)

The update includes something called ProView. The idea is to make the applications look more professional and less like they were built on consumer mapping platforms. So now there are:

- pre-cached maps with the consumer look (yellow orange) and a more professional look
- more layers to toggle - how about "fat streets" when the streets are the focus, but "thin streets" when the focus is something else, like a thematic map? (Have a look at the demo here)
- more control of which labels are on/off to clear the map when appropriate
- better indications of land use: there are now 11 color-coded land use categories (schools, cemeteries, Native American reservations, Federal lands, etc.)

This is the sort of thing you'd need to build yourself as it's not available via APIs from the usual cast of characters. I guess that's one advantage Placebase has just focussing on mapping APIs.

From FCW.com

The Microsoft mapping program works with several partner companies that design and build solutions that work on the Virtual Earth platform. The company’s partnership with ESRI, a geographic information system (GIS) software company EPA works with, was central in the agency’s decision to license the Microsoft product, [manager of the EPA’s facility registry system, Pat] Garvey said.

Other tidbits:

- Products from Virtual Earth may be expected within four to six weeks.
- EPA plans to use VE to geocode.

ESRI, in an Aug. 29 letter to the City of Redlands, California, proposed purchasing a city well near the corner of Redlands Boulevard and Texas Street for $40,000. The water is not potable and ESRI would use it for irrigation, ideally freeing up potable water it now uses for drinking.

- San Bernardino County Sun

You remember ODT, they were in the news some time ago when The West Wing (I'm currently watching that show thanks to Netflix) used their map in an episode. Now the company is turning out an equal area map, with the hope it will better educate about the relative sizes of states and countries.

- Daily Collegian (UMass Amherst)

The article from rediff news (India) notes that social networking apps mostly aimed at finding friends and dates, also has a place in identifying those involved in terrorist attacks.

Narayanan said that scientifically it has been proved that between the perpetrator of an incident and his friends and accomplices there is at the utmost only six levels/degrees of separation "If you are involved, then a friend of yours will come within the orbit of suspicion," he said.

Hold the phone - didn't Stanley Milgram suggest that everyone on earth could be connected by six degrees of separation?

More to the geographic:

Another tool also being employed by the intelligence agencies is spectrum analysis. Analysts at intelligence agencies study an entire spectrum of incidents -- where, what, why, how -- and then come up with a likely map of locations where terrorism is likely to occur.

The annual meeting of the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) is next week, so our editors consider the role of the Geographic Information Officer, GIO. Is it necessary? Will it have the visibility and authority necessary to compete for funding and to control the "fiefdoms" of state and local governments? How will we train such leaders? The podcast is 12 minutes long and was recorded on September 17, 2007.

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