The term “Web 2.0” gets thrown around a lot these days, but few really know what it means. What Web 2.0 is really all about is interactivity, collaboration, community and user-centered design over the medium of the Internet. There are a lot of tools out there that go hand-in-hand with the Web 2.0 concept, and FusionCharts is aiming to be front and center among them.
Create animated and interactive Flash graphs and charts
FusionCharts is a program that allows the user to create animated and interactive Flash graphs and charts for desktop and web applications. This sort of thing isn’t something I normally tinker with, so going in I was a bit daunted by the task. Was I overwhelmed? Read on and find out!
Setting up FusionCharts took a bit longer than I expected, but with such a workhorse of a program I should have expected it in hindsight. No big deal, really. It comes with a tutorial that walks you through everything. Not being a Flash expert, I found this very useful. Really, you don’t need any experience with Flash whatsoever to use FusionCharts. All you need is a familiarity with the language you are using.
FusionCharts turns your information into an interactive pie Chart
Basically what FusionCharts does is take all the pertinent information you want on your chart (statistics and the like) and turns it into an interactive pie chart, for instance. You can take this interactive graphic and put it in a Power Point presentation or set it up in HTML for your website. I’ll admit I’m not the most skilled tech guy out there, and I found this to be pretty cut and dry. After going through the tutorial, I tinkered around with FusionCharts a bit and I was able to make up my own pie chart that I could easily manipulate within the software’s interface.
Depending on what you need FusionCharts for, you could be paying as low as $69, or as high as hundreds of dollars. The $69 version is the one I used and found it to be a very robust program. If you need to make interactive charts and the like, it’s a pretty good deal. If you think you might need more of the bells and whistles, you might want to go with one of the higher tier versions.
These versions are made with larger businesses in mind, so you probably won’t need them unless that’s your milieu. If you do run a large business (or its IT department), chances are the price won’t be that big of a deal. It’s all relative, but the FusionCharts does its job and does it well.
FusionCharts Summary
All in all, I’d recommend FusionCharts for anyone out there that needs to create interactive charts for their website or for other uses, such as Power Point presentations. FusionCharts is very easy to get into and get rolling. In no time, you’ll be plugging in your data and making very attractive graphs that will spruce up any presentation, no matter the format. It’s a very intuitive program, seeming to know what you want before you do!
It’s good to see that the creators of FusionCharts took the time to make this program accessible to people besides hardcore programmers. There’s a huge market out there for people that are just getting their feet wet with programs such as these, and these guys have wisely seized on it. FusionCharts is worth the price tag if you really need to “wow” your customers, and let’s face it; who doesn’t?
Our world is more competitive than ever, so you need and upper hand if you want to get those consumer dollars. FusionCharts is a great piece of software to help you in that endeavor.