Filed under: Uncategorized — bestpric @ 3:09 pm
Fifty States, Fifty Job Rates
By GENE EPSTEIN
IF A RECESSION IS WHEN YOUR NEIGHBOR loses his job, and a depression is when you do, then our neighbors in Michigan have been suffering a recession for some time. But if, to put a new spin on the time-worn quip, an expansion is when your neighbor gets a better job, and a boom is when you do, then if you live in Texas, you’re probably enjoying a boom.
That a boom and a bust could be happening at the same time, in the same country, only highlights an underappreciated fact: While the U.S. economy is a useful abstraction, it consists of many different economies, each with its own special story.
State and regional data are not as timely as national data. But the recently issued Bureau of Labor Statistics release for September 2007 on regional, state, and certain local labor markets provides a reasonably timely update.
Economic Beat – Barron’s Online
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Filed under: Uncategorized — bestpric @ 2:18 pm
Zillow has always seen itself as a media company. The real estate site, which launched in early 2006, has continued to ad features and listings that are very real-estate centric. But with the introduction of its “DirectAds” program it has become something else — a site that uses its considerable data and data-mining capabilities to allow for precision ad targeting based on location, income and other variables. In fact, this is probably the most precise geotargeting ad capability online: down to the house.
The new ad program is designed for regional and national advertisers. The company offers separate ad units (”EZAds”) for realtors and others.
To provide a window into why this is powerful and very interesting, take a cable TV advertiser as an example. Cable TV providers (e.g., Comcast, TimeWarner Cable) have high rates of churn all tied to people moving. Cable TV companies can’t predict when that’s going to happen and so can’t intervene to prevent the churn; they have to reacquire those customers typically. But Zillow’s system can alert them to people who are about to sell their homes anywhere in the U.S. (those using Zillow that is). Zillow does this by watching user behavior and seeing who’s looking at particular homes.
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