Random Thoughts on Cover Art

I was thinking about electronic distribution – indeed, not a surprise for any of our long-term readers.  However among my usual speculations, it struck me that electronic distribution is changing cover art.

Think of how used we are to cover art.  It's on our albums, it's on our books, it's on our games – and also in advertisements for those products.  It's omnipresent and at times surprisingly impressive (paging Boris Vallejo and Michael Whelan).

Only now, with electronic products, things are changing.

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News of the Day 3/3/2010

Apple takes on HTC, Adobe takes over Facebook's advertising, Virgin takes HTML 5 over Flash, and Tivo takes on anyone doing tv media devices! It's the Everything Wars a-go-go today in your must-know news for career-minded fanboys, fangirls, fanmen, and fanwomen!

Career:
The importance of leaps of faith in life and career. Nice bit of advice I think dovetails nicely with my post yesterday.

Geek Law:
Why Apple filed their suit against HTC with the International Trade Comission instead of courts. – Basically a chance for more agressive action. However the ITC also has been used by foreign companies against American companies, so Apple might be opening the doors a little too widely here. Some more detail here, which suggests to me that Apple felt HTC was an easier target.

Anime and Manga:
Crunchyroll recognized by Japan's Association of Media in Digital – Along with nine other winners of their award. Great news for Crunchyroll. Now come on, Crunchyguys, start hiring all the waiting geeks and fans out there . . .

Media:
ABC sees the future of news, and it's more digital. What stands out for me is the idea digital leads to more independence. Though I have issues with the 'personality driven news' we see too often, it does allow for independence as well. Mixed bag in the end I suppose.

Publishing:
The Wall Street Journal will be on iPad and more devices. Now to see who follows – or tries to come up with alternative models.

Social Media:
Adobe's Omniture to handle Facebook ad sales? Interesting: Adobe needs the money, Facebook can wash their hands of the complex ad issues. This is part of many Facebook changes going on, so clearly they're trying to evolve into something with long-term potential.

Technology:
Virgin America ditches Flash for HTML 5 on it's website as it can run on iPhone. Why is this big? Because it's part of the slowly brewing Adobe/HTML 5 war, where you have Flash versus an HTML standard that, when implemented in browsers, allows websites to function . .. well, like Flash. Some good analysis here that makes the point that right now Flash is a bit of a bottleneck to say the least.

Video:
Wow. The new Tivo handles Blockbuster, Netflix, Amazon, and more. Tivo seems to be squarely aiming to be an entertainment center device – which they're doing, but puts them in conflict with many other sources, including game consoles and Boxee. Except for a few oddities, this is a pretty slick deployment, and a good move for Tivo. I think it also cements the Media Box Thingy as a big battleground for companies – and in short, the Everything Wars.

Video Games:
Playdom acquired Facebook game developer Offebeat Creations. Playdom continue's its growth and expansion – might be worth sending them a resume?

A fund for indie game developers? Go take a look!

A bit of layoff news: EA cuts some Boom Blox developers and Square Enix cut some of their sound team.

Take Two games extends partnership with Lego to 2016. They've got a good thing going with the lego games (which are often quite fun, I've sound), there's a Lego MMo coming out . . . the partnership makes sense. Maybe we'll see more property development in the future . . .

EA's Wii Sports line is doing pretty well. They do seem to do well with sports don't they?

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Has Apple damaged their reputation taking on HTC?

– Steven Savage

The Many Sides of ‘Professional’

I often hear over and over again "I'm not a professional" when it comes to their careers.  Usually it's in the form of "I can't do that, I'm not a professional" when I hear it, and usually from a person forgetting that all professionals have to start somewhere.

I also hear people talk about being professional.  It's usually how one acts professional, or dresses professional.  Reams of books are written on how to repress your urges, dress like everyone else, and thus somehow "be professional."

I see "professional" everywhere.  So what is all this "professional" about?

I think when it comes to "professional" people are often talking about different things.

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