News of the Day 9/17/2009

Career:
Is your resume too long? A few thoughts from an experienced recruiter. I wonder if he has a poaint – and if the 'laundry-list' culture of job hunting encourages this.

Economics/Geekonomics/Freakonomics:
Median income has declined in the last decade, but it hasn't been even across states. A little more thought for relocation.

Publishing:
Two Hollywood trade mags aiming to have most online content pay-to-read . (possible with some single-subscription models). Not surprising, but I feel we've been down this path before. If they succeed it will be a blow for paywalls, but I'm not counting on it. The WSJ is prepared to charge starting next week.

GateHouse Media downgraded by Moody's – Suggests it may seek bankrupcy.

Social Media:
Twitter raises a ton of money, valued at 1 billion. The investor is Insight Venture Partners. Venture Partners seems to be a late-game investor, so I think this means Twitter is close to going public or being sold (my guess is within the next 18 months). Public OR sold, that's a huge social media shift coming so watch out if you're in tech, use the tech, or are in a social-media heavy area (like marketing)

Video Games:
Phone games everywhere – Real Networks' Federation of Studios will push games to a huge amount of phone platforms. Apparently Real takes the phone market very seriously (perhaps the recent Apple announcements helped). A boost to game companies and a welcome ally.

Beatles Rock Band sales beating expectations – Included for historical reference, and because the Beatles' are cool.

Lawsuits. Are. Go! A holding company files lawsuit against multiple MMO companies. As they had a successful lawsuit over patent infringement before, this isn't a throwaway case. What's interesting to me is how the company might regard free-to-play MMOs and those with odd billing models.

-Steven Savage