As we near the end of this whirlwind year, we look back at everything we were able to accomplish thanks to your continuous support and encouragement. Through all the hardships and uncertainties, Social Explorer was able to unveil exciting new features and updates all with the main goal of enriching your data and user experience. Even more updates await us in the new year, but until then, here’s a review of some of the major releases of 2020: 

• We Introduced the Layers Selection Tool – we added a brand new tool to our toolbox, the layers tool! Using this new feature, you can select the geographies from your uploaded dataset and easily create reports or masks for those specific geographies.
• Our Geodata Library Went Live – Easily download geodata for United States geographies from 1790 to 2019 as shapefiles or in other formats. Social Explorer’s geodata library consists of a large collection of coastline clipped versions of U.S. geographies.
• Save Map Positions in Social Explorer – Our new feature enables users to easily save specific longitude, latitude, and zoom levels to create new maps of the same location faster.
• Follow the Spread of COVID-19 with Social Explorer – We unveiled a new COVID-19 dataset, allowing you to track confirmed cases, deaths, and the growth rate of the virus on a daily basis. 
• Track the Black Lives Matters Protests Across the U.S. – Social Explorer teamed up with The New York Times to bring you the Black Lives Matter Protests dataset. This dataset allows you to follow the growth of the protests, view areas where protests occurred, and view race by ethnicity in various geographies for deeper insights. 
• We Debuted Our New Teaching and Learning Modules – Our premade modules range across a variety of disciplines and aim to inspire creativity, encourage hands-on learning, and equip students with the desired skills they need to succeed academically and professionally.  
• Our Reports Tool Got a Makeover – If you liked our report making capabilities before, you are going to love them now. We’ve updated the Reports tool and it has never looked better. 
• Social Explorer Among First 10 Recipients of Upwork Grant – We were among the 10 recipients of the first Upwork Work Together Talent Grants – which were established to help fund company efforts mitigating the effect of the coronavirus pandemic.
• We Became COUNTER Certified! – This new achievement made Social Explorer the only online mapping application currently available with COUNTER certification – a library industry standard for usage reporting. 
• We Added Census 2020 Response Rate Data –  At Social Explorer, our main priority is to provide clear and accurate data. Our data mapping and visualization tools strive to provide coherent insights into current issues and events, allowing you to make better sense of your community and beyond. The 2020 Census was no exception. 
• We Published the ACS 2019 1-Year Estimates, First! – Always one step ahead, Social Explorer was proud to be the first data mapping platform to publish the American Community Survey (ACS) 2019 1-Year Estimates.
• We Redesigned Our Homepage – We redesigned the Social Explorer Homepage to improve your overall user experience. Whether you’re a first-time visitor or a longtime user, check out our new homepage to see all the new features we have in store for you.
• Our New COVID Insights Dataset Went Live – We unveiled a new suite of tools that combines the latest demographic data with COVID-19 statistics. The project is supported by a generous grant from Upwork.
• Explore the New Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) Dataset – The new LEMAS dataset provides insights into the racial composition of law enforcement workers in 2007 and 2016, allowing you to discover how trends in recruitment have changed over a decade.
• We Enabled Change over Time for Reports – This new feature in our reporting tool allows users to view change over time (currently up to three different years) or easily switch between years in one convenient report.
• We Added 2020 U.S. Presidential Election Data – As one of the most hot-button issues of 2020, this dataset provides in-depth insights into the recently held U.S. Presidential Election. 
• First to Publish ACS 2019 5-Year Data – Once again, we were the first data-mapping platform to publish crucial American Community Survey data.

What was your favorite Social Explorer feature or update in 2020? We would love to hear from you! Let us know what you would like to see from us in 2021.

We look forward to more updates and releases in 2021 and offer the best in data mapping and visualization solutions. It never felt so good to say – 2020, that’s a wrap!

Author: Hana Trokic