Have you used Blytic.com?

We recently stumbled across an interesting website, Blytic.com. It is an interesting concept, if you’re not familiar with the site.

Blytic is a privately funded Boston area startup offering a novel new service for accessing/managing real-time time-series data as well as for analysis authoring and publishing.

First, Blytic acts as an real-time archive for time series data, providing users with “at-your-fingertips” access to quickly search and navigate the current library of over 20 thousand data series, as well as allowing users to upload and manage their own library of data series.

Then, after users have found one or more data series interesting, they may choose to create an analysis based on that series by mixing and matching other data series or data series derivatives as well as adding annotations and other embellishments in a dynamic chart visualization then adding their own textual description and title.

Finally, users can choose to publish their analysis so that others may read and discuss it.

For instance, we found this chart from MIT Center for Real Estate depicting the Moody’s/REAL National Commercial Property Index.

This is a great resource for any active blogger who likes to use graphics and backup their topic with objective research. There are many instances when we spend more time gathering data and formating charts, than writing subject matter.

One of the reasons CalculatedRiskBlog.com became so overwhelmingly popular is that a graphical illustration of the trend being discussed is included in just about every post.

Most people are visual. For instance, we’ve noticed Marketwi.se is a stickler for graphical trend analysis.

Blytic is certianly more robust, as it allows users to create new graphics, but the concept is somewhat similar to Google’s Public Data utility.

While we only stumbled upon it today, we’ve seen two drawbacks so far. First, you’ll need Microsoft Silverlight to view the interactive charting functions. This is not a deal killer, but Silverlight is not as widely used as dynamic Flash-based charting utilities, such as which Google Public Data uses.

Secondly, on some charts, the Blytic logo can be a bit distracting due to its size. We are all for building brand awareness and appreciate their desire to build it, but the size of the Blytic logo can be a bit overwhelming at times.

Overall, Blytic is an awesome concept, and one which we look forward to using.

Here are a couple more examples of charts which peaked our interest.

Source: SoldAtTheTop

Source: SoldAtTheTop