- Blambot Comic Fonts and Lettering – Who knew there was the equivalent of an AP-style book for comic book lettering?
- T-Mobile Announces Installment Plan for Devices – This is a great idea – but one that highlights the general weakness in the economy as well as the sensitivity to consumption for the handset manufacturers and carriers.
- Stimulus Watch: Keeping an Eye on Economic Recovery Spending – StimulusWatch.org was built to to help the new administration keep its pledge to invest stimulus money smartly, and to hold public officials to account for the taxpayer money they spend. We do this by allowing you, citizens around the country with local knowledge about the proposed "shovel-ready" projects in your city, to find, discuss and rate those projects. These projects are not part of the stimulus bill. They are candidates for funding by federal grant programs once the bill passes.
- New Illness: Facebook Depression? – ReadWriteWeb – This may sound like a joke, but it's not: researchers at Stony Brook University in New York have found that too much Facebook usage can leave you more prone to anxiety and depression…that is, if you're a teenage girl. In a study, a group of 13-year old girls were evaluated by psychology professor Dr. Joanne Davila and her colleague, Lisa Starr. A year later, the researchers followed up with the girls, testing them for depressive symptoms.
- EconomPic Data: Global Unemployment – Though the data is slightly dated, the CIA's 'The World Factbook' shows that the U.S. unemployment ("officially" at 7.2%) is still the envy of every war torn nation.
- Sunlight Foundation » USA.gov. Government Gadget Gallery – USA.gov has posted a gallery of online gadgets (or widgets) that other Web sites can display.
- Comparisons of Inaugural Addresses – This is interesting, especially if looking back at the rhetoric the Chief Executives have used and how that same rhetoric indicates and reflects how their Presidencies are remembered and recorded by history.
- visualcomplexity.com | Visualizing Online Media – Instrument collaborated with JD Hooge of Gridplane to conceive and produce designs for a data visualization project for Google. The concept revolved around the idea of aggregating and visualizing the scale and pace of activity as well as the influence of social media over time. The end result of this effort would harness the power of Google Analytics and other data from varied sources and display them in a flexible interface.
Archives
03
Feb 09
Daily Links for February 2nd
31
Jan 09
Daily Links for January 30th
- Dismal Science: What Is A Depression And Are We In One? –
- "State of the States" Series – Gallup.com's "State of the States" series reveals state-by-state differences in political party affiliation, religiosity, consumer confidence, and job-market conditions, based on Gallup Poll Daily tracking data collected throughout 2008.
- RNC chairman vote enters fourth round – USATODAY.com – What an apt metaphor for the GOP! I say elect Rush!
- Seed: 2009 Will Be a Year of Panic – As 2009 opens, our financial institutions are deep in massive, irrational panic. That's bad, but it gets worse: Many other respected institutions have rational underpinnings at least as frail as derivatives or bundled real-estate loans. Like finance, these institutions are social constructions. They are games of confidence, underpinned by people's solemn willingness to believe, to conform, to contribute. So why not panic over them, too?
Let's consider seven other massive reservoirs of potential popular dread. Any one of these could erupt, shattering the fragile social compact we maintain with one another in order to believe things contrary to fact.
- The Economy According To Mint – Is it Great Depression bad? That’s a qualitative question I can’t answer. But what the data, the hard facts, mean for you – if you run a consumer business – is that your customers are spending $400 less each month than they were a year ago, have burned through half of their savings, and on average have taken on an additional $5k in debt. Good decisions are based on good data. And data – in itself – may be one of the most valuable by-products of any startup.
- How to Friend Mom, Dad, and the Boss on Facebook…Safely – ReadWriteWeb – I prefer to not let worlds collide.
- Mapping and Animating Growth of Target Across United States | FlowingData – Well, fortune was smiling on me last week, and I got a hold of data for Target opening dates and locations (thnx, Cole). So here it is – a map that shows the growth of Target from 1962 through 2008.
- Play-Doh!!! | MetaFilter – A collection of links to various Old Skool Play-Doh commercials on YouTube.
- Black Swan author’s rules for living – Boing Boing – Avi sez, "Nassim Nicholas Taleb, gadfly author of The Black Swan, gives his 10 rules for surviving an unpredictable world with dignity."
- The FT’s Online Business Model – Finance Blog – Felix Salmon – Market Movers – Portfolio.com – We've known for a while that the market for web display ads is slowing down or even getting smaller, even as the amount of inventory continues to rise dramatically. That makes a standard advertising-driven web strategy a recipe for shrinking revenues and disappearing profits. Grimshaw has a two-pronged approach to this problem, and half of it is very clever.