I was hoping to publish data from an ArcSDE Server to ArcGISonline.com and have it be somewhat useful, but it looks like the functionality of the online version is very limited. For example:
Cannot query or search attribute data.
Cannot display labels on features from a feature dataset.
Cannot turn individual layers off or on.
Cannot create subfolders.
Limitations on the quantity of features (.shp files)
The interactive ability is practically nil. Seems like you can look at the geometry, and click an object to display some fields, and change the colors of symbol representation - but that's about it. Google Earth still seems to be a better choice for sharing ArcGIS data with outside groups, because ArcGIS online doesn't offer much that Google doesn't already do, and Google really offers more features and is more user friendly.
Am I missing something? Or is this intentionally designed to provide minimum usefulness? Until I have a web service available to publish to, I was hoping this online service would suffice in the interim, but so far I'm very disappointed. Sure it's free, but not very useful in comparison to GE. Loading published maps seems quite flaky too, I usually have to repeat several steps over and over again and eventually it comes out right after a lot of trial and error - I don't have the time for this stuff. Make it work right the first time, make it useful. Buggy, inconsistent software with limited functionality is not going to be something I will grow to rely on. ArcGISonline is a nice idea, but to date, poorly executed.
-Dave
