Let Me Bore You: Review of Econompicdata

Review of:http://econompicdata.blogspot.com/

PROS:  A site that explains economics with pretty graphs, actual english, and a good sense of humor.
CONS: Can get a bit too "economist-like".  Subjects chosen can be erratic.

SUMMARY: A colorful, effective site on economic issues that makes economics a bit easier to learn and understand.

I do love a good econoblog.  This is not necessarily because they're easy to understand – they often art – I just value the information I get.  The problem of course is communicating this to other people less inclined to analyze these things in depth or without the background to understand what the people at econoblogs are TALKING about.

Econompicdata is a refreshing change.  With the subheader "Darn Nice Economic Eye Candy" this is a blog that mixes good explanations and good graphs to discuss a variety of issues in a bite-sized way.

Econompicdata's blogger, Jake, picks whatever seems to come to mind or be interesting and discusses it with one or more helpful graphs.  YOu can see info on plane crashes, the housing market,oil, liquidity, and more.  The graphs help you understand what's going on – and Jake's explanations usually (but not always) are easy for non-economics to understand or at least get a grip on the issue.

The blog, the graphics, and the writing are refreshingly clear and easy to read.  No clutter, no fuss, no mess, just the subject, the information, and the analysis so you can get an idea of what's going on.

If there's one real flaw it's that you're never sure what's going to get posted here, so unless you're deeply into economics, you can be pretty sure not all of it is going to be of interest to you.  It's a testimony to Jake's depth that he covers so much, but be aware that the blog isn't always going to be up your alley.

I strongly recommend putting this into your blogfeed of business and economic information.  You can be pretty sure at some point something of use to you is going to pop up – and be understandable to you.

– Steven Savage

Welcome to The Everything Wars

Bonnie and I write on video wars, text wars, audio wars, book wars.  I'm starting to think that we may have this wrong.  Not that we're wrong about there being a LOT of competition over standards, delivery methods, media, etc.  I think we're not looking at it from a big enough picture.

We've seen Google announce an OS aimed at Netbooks.  Microsoft suddenly announces Office for Web really isn't as far away as it seemed.  Amazon is working on text deployment (Kindle of course), which conflicts with Barnes and Noble, and also runs on the iPhone.  The iPhone now has to cope with Android (Google), but Verizon is also getting in on the phone app store act.  EVERYONE is busy with some kind of video, while Hulu finally explains why PS3 people got locked out for awhile, and Netflix is scrambling to work with Microsoft.  Microsoft as we noted, is tussling with Google, so who knows what's next.

We don't have video wars.  Or audio wars.  Or text wars.

In the technical side of the Geekonomy we've now got the EVERYTHING wars.  Everyone at some point seems to be butting heads with everyone else in the technology and media side of things.  I'd say we've got unprecedented conflicts, changes, and just plain weirdness coming our way for at least two years.

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