Lady Gaga: The Fame Monster

Okay, admittedly Lady Gaga is considered by some to be at least as bad as Christmas music, if not worse. “Poker Face” is just as likely to get stuck in your head as “Little Drummer Boy.” (Pa-rum-pa-pum-p-p-p-poker face.) But it’s much more danceable, anyway. And it hasn’t been stuck in your head for your entire life, whereas most holiday music is injected into your brain at birth. So give Gaga a chance this year. That way, if you must go shopping, you can just pop in your headphones and shop to the beat of a different drummer.

The Fragmented World of Digital Music

Speaking of Gaga, this IG tells us she’s got the second digitally-best-selling song of 2010 with “Bad Romance” and the fourth best-selling with “Telephone.” With the CD going the way of the dodo, or the cassette tape, digital music is our new medium. Purchase songs individually, or buy whole albums–the only kind of storage space you need is a drive, not a rack of albums. (And since gift cards are so hot these days, you can knock out a great gift for almost anyone on your list by purchasing a gift card or subscription for a digital music service!)

Doctor Who By the Numbers

What better way to say “Happy Holidays” than with the gift of television! (It’s also a good way to say “I’m in denial about the holidays,” as long as you’re watching on DVD, where there are no commercials.) Seasons or entire series of TV shows make great gifts, and they practically wrap themselves. Whichever Dr. Who you consider to be the real one, the show has an undeniable following. You can spend days watching Dr. Who instead of shopping, too! Or, even better, while shopping online.

Call of Duty Franchise

If you’d still like to forget that the holidays are upon us for as long as you can, Call of Duty is a great way to sequester yourself away from the mall rush! That is, if you haven’t foolishly put CoD Modern Warfare 3 on your gift list. Smart gamers pre-ordered and picked up on release day so that they could postpone the holiday craze. Those who’ve asked for it as a gift are crazed for a different reason. But if you’ve already made this n00b mistake, you could always return to an earlier game from the franchise. It’s not like they weren’t successful games or anything. Just look at how many military vehicles you could buy for the price of the franchise!

Kardashian Wedding vs. Average Wedding

Okay, since the time this infographic was created, this relationship has entered the annals of Stupid Celebrity Wedding History. But many of us latch on to celebrities’ lives as an escape from our own, so maybe you follow their weddings with fervor. Even though she’s returning to Ms. from Mrs., we can still marvel at just how extravagant this wedding was–and just how short of a marriage all that spending bought her!

There you have it–distractions from/accompaniments to the holiday shopping rush. Happy pre-holidays!

Turkey Hunting Infographic

While most people buy frozen or refrigerated turkeys at the grocery store, some still opt to hunt the birds themselves. Much like cutting down your own Christmas tree, we’d imagine that hunting your own turkey offers a similar, triumphant DIY feeling. However, given that the average turkey can run up to 25 miles per hour and fly up to 55 miles per hour, you’d have to be a pretty darn good shot! Still, it’s apparently the fastest-growing hunting trend in the United States, so happy hunting.

Thai Cuisine

Maybe Thai food is not the typical choice for a Thanksgiving meal, but sometimes spicier is better. Besides, what are you going to do if the oven breaks or the turkey falls in the trash? Order pizza? Have some class! Sweet and spicy Thai food would be a much more interesting recovery from disaster than boring old pizza. With this infographic, you can learn what regions your favorite Thai dishes come from, and how spicy they are compared to others. Quick suggestion: get the Khao Phat for Grandma Margaret. Her heartburn isn’t pretty.

History of Superfruits

Everyone has a favorite dish at Thanksgiving, and for some people it’s the cranberry sauce. (Yes, really.) But what about mixing it up a little this year? Blackberry sauce? Blueberry-black currant sauce? Cran-black-blue-strawberry-mangosteen sauce? (Whoa–too far; scale it back.) Check out some of these fruits that you didn’t even know were superfruits. It’s not just acai and goji berry; everyday strawberries are in effect a superfruit too! Open your mind and open your mouth for some different side dishes on Thursday.

The Fatty Truth About Fast Food

And if you don’t want to go the superfruit route, you can always go the deep-fried takeout route. Just look at how many of your daily calories are consumed in one fast food meal! Two common establishments might put you OVER that daily caloric limit, depending on what you order. So even if you decide not to cook the whole feast this year, you might want to still cook up those Brussels sprouts–get a couple veggies in, at least. And no, French fries don’t count as a veggie. Ketchup is not a fruit. Those wilted pieces of lettuce, pickles, onion and tomato might be worth half of a serving.

FarmVille vs. Real Farms

Sure, it feels rewarding to harvest an entire field of pumpkins in two minutes on FarmVille. But think about the back-breaking labor an actual farmer has to do to accomplish the same thing. Do you think it takes him two minutes? No way. (And the average farmer is male, while female players own 60% of the farms on FarmVille.) If there were as many farmers in America as there are FarmVille players, we probably wouldn’t have room for all the farmland! Thank a farmer while you’re eating this Thanksgiving, since you can’t eat your yield from a Facebook game.

There you have it. Food for thought!

Technology Enhances Learning

For those wondering whether the internet and computers are corrupting our youth, we direct you to this infographic showing that teachers (those people with experience in teaching our children) find great value in using the tools of technology in the classroom. If ever you find yourself asking “is our children learning?” you can derive great comfort from the fact that yes, they is indeed learning, and they is doing it on computers now. (Cheers to those who picked up the Dubya reference.) It seems that 57% of teachers feel digital learning is assisting student learning, while only 6% feel that textbooks are engaging. Hopefully this will alleviate some of the back problems kids get from carrying 40-pound backpacks to class.

Social Technologies

Social technologies can be used in several aspects of business–it isn’t limited to marketing. This infographic details how departments like HR and IT use social tech for time tracking and recruitment, while on the customer side you’d find more familiar approaches like surveys, sentiment analysis, competitor insight tools and more. Smartly divided between inside and outside business, this graphic, while lacking data viz, does provide insight into the various uses for the myriad social tech tools at our disposal.

The Evolution of Mobile Operating Systems

Can you remember back, all the way back to 1996? A time before tablets, iPhones, Facebook and even Y2K? Well, mobile operating systems were in development even way back then. That was the year the Palm OS launched, followed annually by Palm OS 2.0 and Palm OS 3.0. In the beginning, it was just Palm and Microsoft’s Pocket PC. Blackberry didn’t even enter the scene until 2005, swiftly followed by Android, iPhone, Symbian, Samsung, and a wave of evolutions following the establishment of these. This infographic takes you down techie memory lane and back into the dark ages, so to speak.

American Movie vs. Tech Industry (or, Love Bytes)

While this seems to begin as a rivalry, it really ends up as an analysis of two independent industries who have begun to grow together. Sure, the tech industry makes nearly 23 times more than the movie industry, but a lot of technology is focused around visual media–portable DVD players, tablets and iPhones that play video, TV screens in seat backs on airplanes and in cars… they’re quite intertwined. Besides, tech also provides solutions to the otherwise potentially unsolvable problems posed by imaginative screenwriters. This infographic shows the rise of the geek (as portrayed in cinema) from super lame to superhero and back down a little closer to earth.

Threat Morphosis: The Shifting Motivations Behind Digital Threats

Similar to the mobile operating systems infographic, this IG takes us back into the birth of tech threats. Who doesn’t have fond memories of the Love Letter worm of 2000? Back then, who wouldn’t want to open an e-mail proclaiming love, right? My, how times have changed. Four years later, 37,000,000 files were infected in one year, and from 2005 to 2008, Trend Micro saw a 2,135% jump in threats on the internet. Now we are cautious surfers of the world wide web, constantly on alert for new horrors and updating our anti-virus, anti-malware anti-anti software. Where might online threats be heading next?

Thanks for checking out these techie IGs. Keep up with us as we review new infographics, report on IG news and more!

Benefits of a Hybrid

If you knew that the sleek, tiny Prius could save you over $4,000 per year on gas, you’d consider kicking your Hummer H2 to the curb, right? This infographic gives you a million reasons why hybrid cars are better for the environment and your wallet. The appropriately green background has sort of a recycled paper texture–a nice touch that ties into the theme. Consider how much you drive on a daily basis; maybe you can walk to the grocery store for that daily Red Bull instead of driving there.

UK Exhibition CO2 Emissions

All the travel by United Kingdom citizens for exhibitions alone in 2009 produced over 60,000 tons of CO2–that’s equal to a car circumnavigating the equator 9,023 times! Remember, that’s only travel related to exhibitions in the United Kingdom. It doesn’t include leisure travel, travel to and from work, or anything else. Suggestions on how to reduce the environmental impact of travel follow the statistics given in this infographic. Consider calculating your carbon footprint to find out how much carbon dioxide you use.

Is It Really Green?

Green products are incredibly marketable–9 out of 10 shoppers feel the environmental impact of a product is important to consider when making a purchase, and 7 out of 10 will pay up to 20% more for a green product than a regular one. However, many companies will advertise a product as being more environmentally friendly than it really is. This infographic shows how to tell just how green a material is and get around the hype. It’s amazing what misleading terms are legal to use, even when they don’t accurately describe the product inside.

UPS: Keeping the Blue Skies Green

UPS, a top shipping company, uses its own fleet of airplanes to transport packages around the world. All that travel is taxing on the environment, but they’ve got plans for reducing their CO2 emissions and other harmful practices to “keep the blue skies green.” By 2010, they’d already surpassed their fuel efficiency goals for 2011. See how one company makes plans to go green, and think about what your company can do to reduce its carbon footprint.

Top Countries With Endangered Species

The United States has a total of 1,203 endangered species (both plant and animal) making it the country with the second highest number of endangered species in the world. Our country has more endangered fish and mollusks than any other country in the world. Ecuador is the number one country, and it has nearly twice the number of endangered species. The importance of species preservation is emphasized here.

How Higher Learning Affects the Environment

Student use of paper and gas could be greatly reduced by taking online classes. Eighteen million students use 900,000 tons of paper, but doing school work on a computer would eliminate most of that. Use of gas to get to and from school would also decrease or cease. This infographic makes the argument that online schooling is better for the environment.

Is Cannabis Treated Unfairly?

Green… get it? This is a very different type of green, but it does tie in in a way. It compares cannabis to other street drugs and shows the cost of imprisonment for various drug-related crimes. While this infographic isn’t about environmentally friendly products, it does show the costs of another type of green living!

November 15 is America Recycles Day, so gather up those bottles and cans and contribute to a new wave of environmental consciousness. These infographics show how important taking care of our planet really is, and utilizing the tips provided to boost your knowledge of green living will be beneficial for everyone.

So many old adages apply to money. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Money makes the world go ‘round. Whether you love to hate it, hate to love it, or some other unique combination of love and hatred, it’s impossible to ignore. You’re staring at something that costs money right now–your computer, smartphone, tablet, or other internet-browsing device. We’ve gathered a set of infographics about different aspects of this integral tool of commerce for your consumption. Click any image to view the entire infographic.

Buying Stuff on Credit is Expensive

You know exactly what you’re getting into when you click on this infographic, and it continues to tell it like it is all the way down to the bottom. A $3,500 diamond ring paid with a $25 minimum monthly payment on a 14% interest credit card means, and we quote, “YOU WILL NEVER PAY THIS OFF.” The infographic has a great color palette and plays around with text size and alignment in a way that could be risky if not done right–so it’s a good thing they’re doing it right. A variety of bar and circle graphs keeps things fresh.

The Price of Money

While this graphic isn’t quite an infographic, it does provide some interesting information. For example, a good way to make a really small amount of money would be to melt down pennies from before 1982, when they were 95% copper! You can also make a trivial amount of profit from melting nickels. Well, it sounds like a lot more fun than those greedy change-counting machines in the grocery stores, right? These are the kind of facts you can whip out at cocktail parties to impress company. (Because who else there is going to know how much money you can make from melting a pile of pennies?)

15 Monster Money Wasters

Speaking of greedy change-counting machines, this infographic addresses some of the top money wasters around. Things like high-interest credit cards and bank loans are unsurprising, but near the bottom of the list is pets. Obviously it costs quite a bit of money to own a pet, but… money wasters? Cover your ears, Spot. Besides that, this infographic is a nice monstrous shade of green, and visually enticing. The data within is definitely worth noting, and some of it is expanded upon in our next infographic.

The High Cost of Counterfeiting

As a $600 billion a year industry, counterfeiting is great money for those doing it, and financially ruinous for those it exploits. This infographic boldly proclaims a variety of statistics on the incidences and impact of counterfeiting. Spoiler alert: it does not make China look very good. With a great deal of consistency in the type and design of data, The High Cost of Counterfeiting is a good example of how a bunch of research can be compiled into one cohesive infographic that takes just a minute or two to read, compared to the same amount of data in written form, which could be a few pages long. Watch out for those “Converse Ball Star Classics” on the shelves…

US Bank Crime Statistics

Commercial banks accounted for over 90% of financial institution robberies in 2010. The majority of people injured in the robberies were bank employees, who might now be thinking about transferring to a credit union or, better yet, a mutual savings bank. Still, as the money wasters IG will tell you, keeping your money at home means you lose out on the miracle of compound interest. Your $60 will still be $60 in 30 years if it sits under your mattress. It will just be a lot more wrinkly.

Summary

There you have it: the ups and downs of money, be it spending, investment, robbery, counterfeit products, or melting coins. A topic like money is something everyone is involved in, but not everyone wants to (or knows how to) wade through financial lingo to get the facts. Infographics like these are an accessible way for everyone to get the basic statistics they’re after without spending entire days sifting through glossaries and financial self-help books just for a definition. Not to mention they’re incredibly easy to share, and they really spruce up a blog or website.

(Click any image to view the entire infographic.)

Buying vs. Renting Textbooks

Textbook rental is a popular way to save on the exorbitant cost of books. Students can save over $2,500 in a four-year education by renting their textbooks. That’s a lot of bacon money, kids. Of course, there is a list of “better” ways you could spend your money, if you want to be practical like that. We also see how rental saves taxpayer money, which parents and grads can be happy about. (We’d like to point out that taxpayer savings are represented by pigs. While intended to give the impression of a piggy bank, it reminds us of bacon.) This infographic is easy to follow, so you can scroll through it at the bookstore.

The 14 Best and Worst Dorms in the Country

Although this infographic doesn’t give any of the dirty details on why these dorms are awesome or awful, it’s still pretty useful. Maybe we don’t want to know why Garner Hall is the worst dorm in the country. It might involve bodily fluids, pest infestation, or gray dining hall food. You should save the link or embed code to this IG when making your housing requests. That way, when John from Math 203 shows up every morning smelling like the burnt hair in his dorm’s carpet, you can link him and he can put in a request to move ASAP.

Reading Students Like An Open Facebook

Did you know that 70% of colleges say a student’s Facebook profile is a medium to high priority in admissions? You ought to change your profile pic to that cute high school grad picture with Grandma. This IG uses a nice bright color palette to convey some terrifying (though useful) information for prospective college and grad school students. The designer used simple bar and circle graphs with varied orientations and icons, keeping the data visualization interesting. Bookmark this IG to review again before you mail in your application.

Reading Professors Like An Open Facebook

It’s nice to see this IG, directly related to the one above, use similar tactics but new design for its data. While the same circle graphs are present, the color scheme is different, and the bar graph has been reimagined. This also has more illustration, like the cute desk setup. 91% of professors use social media as part of their jobs… so look them up! Even with privacy settings, you’ll still at least find a profile pic, and sometimes those are worth their pixels in gold. Or laughs. Or bacon. (Wait, maybe not in bacon.)

College Students: Is Twitter Hurting Your Grades?

Admit it. You’ve tweeted during class. You’ve tweeted in the library. You’ve tweeted while waiting to talk to your prof. You tweet all the time, but is it affecting your education? This dynamic Twitter-blue and gray infographic wants to figure that out, and it analyzes some pretty interesting data to do so. As long as you’re not tweeting about the cute barista at the coffee shop this morning, Twitter can play a positive role in a learning environment. We already know social media plays an enormous role in, well, social relationships, but educational usage is pretty cool.

An Infographic About the Class of 2011

Our recent grads have grown up with the internet. They are tech-savvy. They don’t bat an eye at actors drinking brand-name sodas and shopping at major retailers in movies and TV. And yes, the first thing they think of when they hear U2 is Irish rockstar Bono. They may also fear tap water, opting for the finest in bottled H20. This is our new generation. Congratulations, class of 2011! To celebrate your entrance into the “real world,” maybe you should fry up some of…

America’s Favorite Bacon Dishes

We designed this appropriately red and pink infographic. It uses social media ratings to determine the most popular ways to eat bacon in some major US cities. These range from pretty normal fare (double bacon cheeseburgers are #1 in San Diego) to the absurd (chorizo stuffed dates wrapped in bacon are somehow the Chicago favorite… Atlanta has similar taste). We don’t know where all these people who eat bacon with dates are hiding, but the IG shows its the most popular pairing. If you’re a no-frills bacon eater, just fry it up and chow down–we won’t judge.

Wrapping Things Up (Other Than Bacon-Wrapped Dates)

For busy college students, the faster the info is available, the better. Infographics are a great source of information for this huge portion of internet users, and there are a wealth of topics that will peak their interest. Food is always a plus, but data on financial planning, careers, cars, entertainment, politics, and more will resonate strongly, too. Keep it simple, use pictures, minimize text. These simple rules apply to all infographics, by the way: you should always focus on data visualization, telling as little about your topic through text as possible. Infographics without the graphics are just info.