bizologie Favorite Apps: Simply Postcards

One of our new favorite apps is Simply Postcards. This app lets you "mail any photo as a real postcard, right from your mobile device".  Pure genius. We all love getting postcards in the mail, but sometimes sending them can be a hassle when you're away on vacation. Now all you have to do is snap and send. No shopping for postcards or tracking down stamps when you're in an unfamiliar city. And now instead of a pic of the Eiffel Tower, you can send a pic of YOU in front of the Eiffel Tower! All you do is write your message, enter the address and for about a dollar, you can send your picture anywhere in the US (International addresses are a bit more; around $2). Simply Postcards will print and stamp your postcard the day you create it and mail it the next day. You can also add fun borders to your card. They've got borders for all sorts of occasions like birthdays, thank yous, Valentine's Day, and Christmas. You'll also find general travel ones and one that makes your photo look like a Polaroid picture.

The app is free to download and is available for iPhone. Never fear Android users, their site says that the Android app is coming soon.

In the Market for Housing Data? No Shortage of Free Resources

Whether you're looking for new home sales, existing home sales, median prices or foreclosure information, there are several free resources to offer assistance when researching housing data. The US Census Bureau's Economic Indicators site has information on new home sales, building permits, Home Ownership Rates (HR), Rental Vacancy Rates (RVR) and Homeowner Vacancy Rates (HVR). They also have a page for New Residential Sales Index and as part of the 2011 Statistical Abstract, you can find Construction & Housing: Housing Sales providing such data as Price Indexes of New One-Family Houses Sold, by Region or Existing One-Family Homes Sold and Price by Region.

RealtyTrac provides statistics and trends for foreclosures across the country. You can find things like foreclosure activity counts, a national Foreclosure Rate Heat Map, foreclosure average prices and top foreclosure cities (1. Las Vegas 2. Chicago 3. Phoenix 4. Miami 5. Los Angeles).

The National Association of Realtors also provides housing statistics including things like Existing Home Sales, Pending Home Sales, Metropolitan Area Prices, State-Existing Home Sales and the Housing Affordability Index.

You can also find information specific to your own state. For instance, in Texas, the Texas Controller's Office publishes the Comptroller's Economic Outlook which includes housing statistics specific to Texas.  State Universities can be a wealth of information, as well. The Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University provides "Residential home sales, listings, price activity and affordability for over 40 Texas metropolitan MLS (Multiple Listing Service) areas."

Not only do these sites provide great information, several of them package it for you, as well. So if you're looking for a pre-made PDF chart or an Excel sheet with all the data, sometimes they've done the work for you. Got other housing data sites you love? Tell us about them in the comments.

How are folks spending their money?

Need stats on how consumers are spending their hard earned dollars?  Or are you just curious how your personal spending stacks up to your neighbors? Bundle is the free resource that provides spending and saving data gathered from over 20 million Americans. The Everybody's Money feature lets you filter by income, age, household status, city (even down to the zip code level). You see bubbles for broad areas of spending and then Go Deep for more of a breakdown. Under Food & Drink you can see dining out spending separate from grocery store spending. Bundle even provides you with the names of the merchants most used by your select demographic for that area of spending. Then they give you monthly spend and even average purchase price!

How do they do it? The largest portion of the juicy information comes from anonymous and aggregated customer spending data from Citi and other third party providers. It is even updated quarterly so that you can see seasonal spending and spot trends early. Not only is it amazing data, it is also easy to use, and really pretty.

Mad Men & Wolfram Alpha

I've been rewatching  Mad Men Season Two recently and thinking about salaries and what it takes to live in NYC.  In one episode, I believe it's Peter who says he makes $75/week. Of course, the Business Librarian in me kicked in and I had to know what that meant, exactly. "How much is that?" "Can you afford a NYC apartment on $75/week?"  Wolfram Alpha to the rescue. Peter's salary comes out to about $3900/year in 1960 or $29,146 in 2011. Which would explain why they need Trudy's parents' help with the purchase. Harry gets a raise in season two: $225/week. This comes out to $11,700/year in 1960 or $87,438.52 in 2011. You can try out the Historic Salary Calculator below, or make your own, here. Wolfram Alpha has lots of other tools helpful for business research like stock data, foreign currency exchange and income tax estimates.  You can type in the names of a couple of companies and Wolfram Alpha will create a chart comparing things like stock prices, number of employees and revenue.  Need calculations on-the-go? Download their app available for iPhone & Android for $1.99.