When I first blogged about ArcWeb Explorer (AWX) back in May, the application/tool was still in beta and had a number of unresolved issues that limited its functionality. Now, these problems appear cleared up, making AWX and interesting and useful tool.

AWX has all the usual features of a web mapping site: a search for addresses and directions and an interchangeable map / satellite image. Satellite imagery seems limited to Landsat for areas outside of the United States. Nothing unusual of spectacular here.

But AWX offers more than any of the other web mapping sites: users can search by telephone number (mine was eerily aacurate) or url. Users can also upload their own Excel spreadsheet of geographic coordinates, addresses, telephone numbers or urls (limit one Excel spreadseet per session). Users looking at the United States can access U.S. Census data by switching from regular map or satellite view to data view. Users can also generate a tabular report of census data for a user-specified area (e.g. 10 mile buffer around a selected point). Users can also find an address for an indicated location on the map (if one exists).

There are still a few bugs in the system (after running a report I had trouble getting the screen to refresh as I zoomed out) and the refresh rate is a bit slow but AWX holds promise and seems to indicate the direction online mapping sites are headed.

View the AWX help page for more details on its functionality.