The end of the year is fast approaching, and that’s when news organizations like to start looking back on the year that was. There are a few new projects taking a wider look at the economy and how it has changed, and they are using the web in unique ways to share data and stories.

Times of Crisis, from Reuters, is tracking the global economic crisis on an interactive timeline, starting in September 2008 and plotting images, stories, and data that represent how the world has changed in the past year. Milestones like the $85 billion loan from the U.S. government to AIG (September 2008), to trends like a growing fine art market (October 2008), to tips for consumers about how to cope with the recession (April 2009) are plotted on the “wall”. There’s also a blog area where visitors can answer the question “how has the credit crisis affected you?”

The Economic Policy Institute, which focuses on including middle and low income workers in economic policy, recently launched Economy Track, which lets you explore job sand employment figures in easy-to-read graphs. The unemployment rate chart, for example, compares demographic figures as well as numbers from the current recession compared with economic downturns in 2001, 1990, 1981 and 1973.

The PBS economy video widget, which we’ve featured here before, is including more and more content, with stories from The PBS NewsHour, interviews from Tavis Smiley with economics experts, and full-length Frontline pieces.