Say goodbye to IPOs, hello to a new social network, and a big wet kiss for a new publishing opportunity! It's geek news time!
Economics/Geekonomics:
A gander at the level of debt of different countries, just to help keep things in perspective.
Those big IPOs? Probably gone for good.
Film:
There is probably a 4th Transformers film. Er. Yeah. Well they did make money.
Publishing:
Amazon signs authors directly. This is pretty big because it cuts out publishers (who have their own problems), gives the authors what is likely a bigger cut (which is nice), and promotes Amazon's services. This is likely a very big shift for Amazon, and may well mean they broaden their unique content offerings. Meanwhile, just what are publishers going to do . . .
Social Media:
Meet the Facebook/Twitter/Digg/etc. competitor Chime.in. Not much to say about it, but we'll see how it does – may be worth exploring for now.
Technology:
Big new for YouTube – pairing videos with a merch store for musicians. Sounds good – potentially profitable, and it transforms Youtube into something more. Probably a good move on Amazon's part – now a question here is how far this extends to smaller names and independents . . . since if anyone can eventually get into this it could be big.
RIM apologizes to its remaining customers with $100 of free apps.
Video Games:
Professor Layton no longer exclusive, gets new iOS game. This is big as this is a well-loved (and deservedly so) franchise mixing puzzles and enchanting characters. Of course this brings up the question of who else is waiting to make the leap – and if this is the breach in the damn.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: How do you think publishers will react to Amazon's new deals?