Big, big Facebook announcements, iPads gone medical, and John Romero is doing what he always does. Gear up, it's geek news time!
Career:
Stop comparing yourself to others – Because it may make you miserable.
Economics/Geekonomics:
44% of the unemployed in the US have been unemployed 6 months or longer. This is pretty much unprecedented – we're talking nearly twice as many long-term unemployed than past records. That's a huge effect on people, their familes, demographics, everything. It's also a reminder that, until we have a good economic re-alignment (yes, I'm still not saying recovery), you want to plan ahead for your job and career – and potential downturns.
Yep, I don't think we're in a 'recovery' (or re-alignment) yet, but here's a look at cities missing whatever bounceback we may be having. Pretty much "don't go to Florida, Michican, Ohio, and parts of California."
A look at happines, freedom, prosperity, and their relations. Some surprising insights here (I never thought of the effect of education on surplus labor).
A look at how Goldman has probably taken the wrong tact.
Startups are apparently zooming back and providing employment. Is part of the re-alignment going to be a wave of startups – are they in fact the ones more willing to risk?
Business:
Zipcar acquires Streetcar, in the UK. These are car-sharing companies, and that's a promising business in a time of high prices, crowded cities, and green interests. Zipcar is a company worth watching as they seem to have a good model of how to make things work.
Movies:
Warner Brothers seems to be awfully dedicated to 3D and less interested in big names compared to the past. A few thought-provokers. Oh and the next Men In Black will be 3D.
Social Media:
Facebooks big announcements: new features and new plugin/modules, and it has a doc sharing site it launched with Microsoft. A general pre-F8 roundup and theory is here. Plenty to read here, and plenty of changes, new things, discontinued elements, etc.. This is also a double-barrel assault on Google – Facebook partnering with Microsoft on Docs, and Facebook's call for social indexing of sites would let it expand search and tagging functions.
(Facebook announcements and analysis will doubtlessly be bouncing around into the weekend, so let us know if we miss anything!).
Great advice on using social media with multicultural audiences.
Technology:
Looks like Google is active (as usual). They just bought a small startup called Agnilux, and are apparently in talks to buy travel software company ITA. The latter interests me more as ITA makes travel software for, among other companies, Orbitz. The travel purchase sounds like they're looking to compete with other travel-search features in competitor products, though I see it having a potential social media use (where-I'm-going) as well.
Salesforce buys Jigsaw. Jigsaw is a kind of crowd-sourced contact/data service that has had a bit of controversy over it's initial methods (which have changed) because of the massive data-mining and privacy issues. Not quite sure what Salesforce plans to do with this, but I sense a more research/social media addition to their tools. Salesforce, of course, is a send-a-resume-to-company as they've done quite well with their vision.
Hopsital equips 100 staff with iPads, in what sounds like a pretty smart setup. This is an entire area for Pad-tech I'd never thought of, and it fits perfectly – medical personnel have a lot of docs, pictures, and records to deal with. So more money for Apple – and others. Side note, I get the impression iPads and Tablets are going to be what we all THOUGHT wearable computers were going to be six years ago.
Adobe pretty much gives up on it's flash-to-iPhone tools. They've also cozied up with google.
(Side note – Facebook cozies up to Microsoft against Google, Adobe is cozied up to Google against Apple . . . the Everything Wars have entered an even weirder phase).
Gizmodo argues that the iPhone leak was not planned. Still not sure I believe it.
Video Games:
John Romero is up to something and is hiring. He's always up to something, and you know you'd like to be a part of it. Check the article and get your resume ready.
Warner Brothers Buys Turbine. Giving the a company that's done some innovative stuff and a good game, and more Lord of the Rings rights. So what's going to come of this? I wonder if its more than LoTR, they just got a good MMO-making company.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: So, is it down to Facebook versus Google in the Everything Wars?
– Steven Savage