Two stories from TechCrunch this week highlight how the internet has the potential to bring the dryest subject matter to life.

First off, AOL’s integration of financial news from Relegence, a company they acquired last year. The result, says TechCrunch, is

“a deep browsing engine for news related to the company you are viewing. Blogs, analyst reports, press releases, etc. can be added or removed to filter results. And users can also choose to have news included that merely mentions the company v. articles that really focus on that particular business, [while] Historical stock data, which goes back as far as 25 years, is on display via Flash graphs [that] can be easily manipulated to see different time frames. Other companies and indexes can be added to the chart for comparison purposes.”

The second story, while not about financial journalism per se, gives an indication of the oft-heralded but equally overlooked potential of games for journalism, as it reports on the eToro money trading service:

“There are four games to choose from:

• Forex Marathon – You pick the currency you think will go up and have it compete in a foot race against the currencies you think will go down.
• Dollar Trend – Race the US Dollar against other currencies, choosing whether it will rise or fall.
• Globe Trader – Manage your Forex trading portfolio by forging relations with other currencies on the map of the world.
• Forex Match – Choose the currency you think will go up and have it go one-on-one in a tug of rope against a currency you think will go down.
  

Rupert Murdoch take note: the Wall Street Journal may have to do more than go free to compete.