Personal home pages, blogs, podcasts, video; over the past decade, a lot of self-publishing tools have come online, and here’s one more: Many Eyes, created by IBM’s Collaborative User Experience group, allows anyone to upload data, then turns it into a nifty visualization. As you can imagine, economic information is especially conducive to this type [...]

Okay, we’ve been at this two months now, so seems like a good moment to take a look back at some of our favorite posts and user-generated material. Click away: McKvetch – McDonald’s Talk provides a forum for those who toil under the golden arches to grouse about their employer. Haikus for the times – [...]

Here’s a site we really like. Blogging Away Debt autobiographically chronicles the financial trials, tribulations, and triumphs of Beks, who started out in May with $38,495.86 in debt and has since whittled that down to $21,768.53. Along the way, she has documented in consistently honest, thoughtful, and entertaining posts the situations that many Americans — [...]

Got ‘em? You’re not alone. Culled from YouTube: A bunch o’ people all singin’ their own version of songs titled “Recession Blues.” Best of set (if you’re David Lynch)

First sentence from today’s AP story on Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe’s growing prominence in the health care debate: “They call her “President Snowe” in the blogosphere.” We haven’t come across that nickname yet, but a perusal of various online opinion shows a marked obsession with the Senator most-likely-to-secede from the closed ranks of the Republican [...]

State arts funding is down for the second year in a row, and the severe recession has turned many struggling artists into full-time job seekers with little or no time to pursue their passion. So what’s an aspiring or emerging painter, novelist, filmmaker to do?

Well, for one, they can become fans of the Wealthy Patrons for the Arts group on Facebook. The group’s description:
This group is to inspire those with means to collect art from galleries and artists. Example: Instead of spending $ 3 million for 2 paintings at an auction house, just think of the trickle down if you do this. Go to an art town, like Taos. Go on a shopping spree and spend that million. Buy hundreds of artists. The artists, galleries, framers, shippers, local business’ etc will all benefit ( and love you for it ), not just the auction house and the seller….

Sounds like a great idea. But if your project remains stuck in the, uh, conceptual phase, languishing for lack of resources, then you’re in need of another funding mechanism. That’s where Kickstarter comes in. This site describes itself as a funding platform where artists can post proposals and ask for donations in return for “products, services or other benefits.”

Craig Robinson is an artist and illustrator and the creator of Flip Flop Flyball, a collection of brightly colored “infographics”—maps, pie charts, graphs, and other appealingly presented baseball data. His work-up of 2009 Major League Baseball ticket prices illustrates one reason why attendance is down 7% this year, with 21 of 30 teams experiencing a [...]

“When will California see peak housing prices again? According to Moody’s, not until 2030.” “The housing market has further to fall and will not bounce back to prior levels for a long, long time. Sorry everyone. Sorry.” “I know many people with kids feel they have to own a house. But for me I will [...]

Who knew that the rock group The Band saw the housing crash coming way before anyone else? Found on the Real Estate Video blog.

The recession has certainly changed the way many of us live our daily lives: second-guessing that impulse purchase at the mall, perhaps opting for the cheaper vacation near home rather than the exotic trip abroad. But it’s also shifting the way some people handle major life events. Couples getting married are scaling down their weddings, and couples trying to end their marriage are putting it off indefinitely. Seriously! Tina Antolini of WFCR in western New England has the story of married couples staying married only because the economy is making them.