New sorces of economic data

The current trend away from theoretical models that explain everything to empirical studies that focus on narrower practiacl questions is facilitated by new data sources. Google Finance just launch new indices that can be downloaded and used in economic analysis:

Google Domestic Trends track Google search traffic across specific sectors of the economy. Changes in the search volume of a given sector on google.com may provide unique economic insight. You can access individual trend indexes by clicking on the left-hand navigation.

Another example of new data analysis comes from V. Henderson et al. "Measuring economic activity from outer space". The data investigated by Henderson is actually large foto pictures (3Gb each file) that are available for downloading here.