Some time toward the end of this year, FortiusOne plans to open a public data repository and social network for data sharing to encourage the creation of dynamic online map mashups that combine multiple data sets.

FortuisOne recently released an online geospatial analysis and heat mapping service called GeoIQ that enables geographic data visualization in online mapping applications like Google Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth. Using the company's open API, Web-based map makers can present and combine multiple data sets using colorful, contiguous heat maps rather than discrete pushpin icons.

"The thing that always frustrated me was the ability to look at only one data set at a time," says Sean Gorman, CEO and founder of FortiusOne. "One of the things that's really critical for our application to have a lot of value is there has to be a lot of data for it to consume. Since most of these mapping applications are geared toward the masses rather than the traditional desktop GIS environment, our take on it is that data needs largely to be free."

Data sharing may be the next logical step in the movement toward open systems and networks. But it's not without its problems.

In 2003, as a George Mason University graduate student, Gorman used freely available pubic data to create a map of the U.S. fiber-optic network and the businesses it connected as part of his Ph.D. dissertation. In a July 2003 story about Gorman's work in The Washington Post, former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke suggested that Gorman's dissertation be burned to keep it from those aiming to damage critical national infrastructure.

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