Batch Geocoding

Geocoding at batchgeocode.com

Ok, so you read batch geocode and your first thought was what the heck is he up to now? Well, I'll tell you. Batch geocoding allows you to take a list of addresses and apply latitude and longitude coding so they can be translated into points on a digital map. If you have ever wanted to create a google or yahoo maps mashup but didn't want to have to learn the API, here's your chance to play.

As a sales guy, I have PLENTY of lists of every conceivable type of company so I picked out a short one, a list of chartered banks in Mississippi that I got from the FDIC website. I cut and pasted the list from fdic.gov (once I entered some sort / select options) into an excel spreadsheet and added the appropriate column headers

Institution Name	City	State	Class	Total Assets($000)
First Federal Savings and Loan Association	Aberdeen	MS	SA	23,151
Amory Federal Savings and Loan Association	Amory	MS	SA	62,923

Then, I cut and pasted this into the block on the batchgeocode.com website (highlight the existing sample text so that you paste over it). Step three is to select "validate" so that they verify the data is usable. This step will also populate the Step Four location fields. Make selections appropriate to the data you selected and then "Run Geocoder". It's handy that for impatient souls like me they put a counter so you can know whether you have time to go get another cup of coffee. Once that step is complete, Step 6 will give you back your data with geocoding that can be then cut / pasted into a spreadsheet or other application. You are also then presented with a Yahoo maps mashup of your data that you can post to a web page that can then be embedded or linked to. Optionally you can download the Google Earth KML file which can be viewed in the Google Earth application. Here's my Yahoo maps mashup of the bank data:

Bank List Mashup

Where this gets even more interesting is that you can specify data grouping with color coding for the "push pins" on the mashup map, so you can map two (or more) types of data on the same map, say proximity of liquor stores to churches or pawn shops close to casinos, the possiblities are endless. Some cool examples of this type of data analysis is on swivel.com , but we'll cover that in another blog entry.

I can think of dozens of applications for this from social uses such as mapping the sunday school members to help decide a central location for the next BBQ, to business mappings of existing customers, prospect list maps, competitor mapping and the like.