What's next? the DataFerrett

DataFerrett is a free tool that allow you to explore data, create spread sheet tables, graphs, maps, pdf documents and dowload from datasets that are published to TheDataWeb. Ferrett stands for Federated Electronic Research, Review, Extraction & Tabulation Tool. To quote the site:

TheDataWeb is a network of online data libraries that the DataFerrett accesses the data through. Data topics include, census data, economic data, health data, income and unemployment data, population data, labor data, cancer data, crime and transportation data, family dynamics, vital statistics data, . . . As a user, you have an easy access to all these kinds of data. As a participant in TheDataWeb, you can publish your data to TheDataWeb and, in turn, benefit as a provider to the consumer of data.

The DataFerrett is a product of the U.S. Census Bureau. The official unveiling of the Community Economic Development (CED) HotReport http://ced.census.gov took place on July 17, in Kansas City, MO. The groundbreaking product is the work of the Census Bureau’s Data Integration Division. HotReports utilize TheDataWeb, DataFerrett and ReportWriter technology to retrieve and analyze data from myriad data sets in- and outside of the Census Bureau and display it visually on interactive web pages.

Good question, what is this and why would I care? It is just another way to get information out of the U.S. Government.