iCharts: Think YouTube, Only Charts

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I'm still catching up on all the latest Web 2.0 launches that debuted a few weeks ago at TechCrunch 50.

One that caught my eye this week is iCharts. iCharts is still in beta and like most of these things it has a free version and then scales up for a price with more bells and whistles.

iCharts is sort of like YouTube meets Wikipedia meets, uh, Excel.

It's a social networking site for charts and graphs.

In other words, it's a wonk's dream site.

Charts are uploaded for public consumption and organized by categories like financial, technology, society, sports, ecology, etc.

It could be a great place to find free research. But remember; you get what you pay for and who's to say the contributing author that posts the chart is working with accurate information or knows how to present data. In other words, I wouldn't swear by the data you find there, although it's fun to peruse.

How iCharts could be useful:

Nevermind what strangers are posting; this is a place where you can put together charts and graphs that are little more dynamic than a static Excel spreadsheet and share them with others by invitation to the site. Charts on the site allow for audio commentary, a little slider bar to zoom in on specifc parts of the charts and graphs, and comments below for collaboration and feedback.

Speaking of Excel, you can import data directly from an Excel spreadsheet into iCharts tool. Ditto for PDF files. Now, that's sweet!

Have fun and geek out!

Renee Oricchio

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987. @oricchio