News of the Day 7/16/2009

Big news yesterday was Twitter's breach of company security. Note this is not the service itself – it's the fact that internal apps (namely, Google-hosted) were opened with a hacked password. Here's some perspective. Note that the hacker is sending around documents they acquired since May, so there may be much more news about this.

Career:
Get out of your comfort zone! – A look at fear and networking.

MUST READ: Recsssion proof your career. Good advice on good attitude.

A nice map on job-postings per population – Also part of indeed.com, a good search aggregator.

Economics/Freakonomics/Geekonomics:
Simply, companies have too much debt – A quick look at the situation and some hint at what's going on. Namely? We're going to see more Chapter 11, less credit, and we'll be seeing this for years to come. As I've harped on several times (and will in the upcoming podcast), I think we're due at least another mini-recession in 3-5 years unless there's a lot of change.

Mobile:
Seven startups looking to do some important things in the mobile space – A bit of job-worthy research for you.

Publishing:
Financial Times editor predicts most news organizations will be charging online within a year. Interesting article, worth some thought since it's from a big name in publishing, and seems to be on a growing trend. Career/economic thought: how much of this is a game of chicken, where publishers want to charge, but want to see what others do, and aren't sure if they should be the first to do it (and thus maybe take a hit), or the last (and thus look like they "have" to go along – yet also may be late to the game).

Social Media:
How universities are using social media – May give you some ideas for your business/career/institution. As social media has been adopted more by the youthful, this may also twig us onto upcoming larger trends of what the population will expect.

Technology:
Zoho doesn't seem to worried about Microsoft's Web Office – A feisty blog post. I get the impression Zoho plans to hold on, provide alternatives, and let their opponents hurt themselves, all while carving out a nice niche.

Microsoft plans to have motion-capture system Natal work with Windows – Granted it's also for meetings and virtual communications, but I've got the feeling this is jumping the gun on an unreleased technology. Plus I sense a potential Microsoft 'Bob' moment of some very bad and stupid things being done with this that turn people off. On the other hand, there will be some room (at least initially) for Natal developers.

Video:
More on the Hulu-blocking PS3 browser issue – Sounds like it was a provider issue, but this points out how murky a lot of relations are in the online video area. You haven't seen the end of these issues.

– Steven Savage