News and Analysis

News Of The Day 10/20/2011

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BofA keeps dying, movies get a new lease on life, and Crunchyroll rules the world. Geek news time!

Economics/Geekonomics:
A nice, cynical look at the inevitable death of Bank of America, and the fact some people should be in deep trouble over some deals. Worth reading if you want a bit of a better view, and if you're feeling a need to be cynical and depressed. Let me repeat – don't send them a resume and frankly, don't bank with them.

Anime and Manga:
Crunchyroll is going to just stream some stuff right from Japan. I'm not surprised, though I still feel that Crunchyroll is in a kind of ninja mode and people are so used to it they don't appreciate it's power. Or what would happen if someone bought them . . .

Publishing:
Amazon eying Kindle for Japan this year? Nice move, gizmo-friendly population, though it may loose them some allies.

Remakes:
Troma selling the rights for two remakes, in this case "Class of Nuke 'Em High" and "Poultrygeist." Weirdly the "Nuke 'Em High" series is still continuing. Considering Troma has a lot of well-known and semi-known cult classics under their belt, they may see this as a moneymaking opportunity of the first magnitude.

Social Media:
Facebook getting into the job scene? It's in an initial stage obviously, but this is intriguing on a number of grounds:

  • It makes them compete with LinkedIn. What that means? I'm not sure, but LinkedIn is good at what they're doing.
  • They're taking on job search sites as well.
  • It keeps them doing their throw-it-at-the-wall strategy, which I question frankly.
  • Can they truly formalize the way Facebook is used for Jobs? I'm curious as to what they'd do.

Technology:
Microsoft has record revenues thanks to XBox and servers. Frankly for all the past mistakes, the Xbox is an awesome device, and some of the server offerings are . . . well anyway. Microsoft seems to be doing well for this economy.

Technology and bad news:
BuyWithMe has huge layoffs – I never even HEARD of these guys and they're in a death spiral. Probably a good warning that just because you never heard of a company does not mean extensive research isn't in order. Man.

Groupon's IPO value is dropping. Frankly I wonder if they're in a race to get it done – then sell off. It's future isn't promising.

Video Games:
Free realms reaches 20 million people. Impressive, though they haven't discussed active gamers. Free Realms kind of got eclipsed lately – maybe we should pay attention?

How Angry birds conquered all. Good read.

QUESTION OF THE DAY:So can Facebook make it as a job search tool?

– Steven Savage

In Which I Get the Cartoon/Toy Remake Thing

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Adaptions of Transformers?  A source of jokes.  GI Joe?  A film stunning in its mediocrity.  If it's not equine and friendly and little, it seems most re-adaptions of cartoons aren't too good, and of course I snootily turn my nose up at them.  Hell, we have one blogger here whose entire goal is to dissect adaptions, leaving me more time to be self-righteous if charming and personable.

Today I heard about J.J. Abrams and a Micronaut movies and I suddenly felt a visceral "yes!" echo in me head, and I understood just why people would be interested in these seemingly majority-terrible adaptions.

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It Just Kind of Sneaks Up On You . . .

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This was going to be a different post, but I decided to focus on Amazon's publishing deals with authors – sans publishers.

I'm still chewing it over, but one thing struck me about this deal.

Let's take a look at what's changed over the years with technology and publishing:

  • Print on Demand.
  • Common Word Processing formats.
  • A series of wide-ranging sales networks (Amazon being the most famous).
  • Outsourceable marketing (what are all those agencies)
  • The ability to get talent easy (like, say, editors) freelance.

Now all of those things were remarkable separately.  Bring them together and is it any surprise that Amazon could offer authors a sweet deal – and that anyone else could take the above innovtions and do something similar?

No surprise.  None.  This is something some of us saw coming (I'd like to think we kinda did here, though I didn't expect Amazon to leapfrog like this).  I'm actually disappointed the many publishers out there didn't see this coming and make some kind of pre-emptive run – disappointed, but not surprised.

So a bunch of us progeeks saw it coming at whole or in part.  Fine.  No surprise.

So what are we missing?

What are we missing in gaming?  Gaming's had a lot of changes, we're in the age of DLC and indie games which surprised a few people – so what is going on with all the innovations we've missed?

What's missing in comics?  It's easy to be overwhelmed with the films or the multimedia out there, but a lot of changes in publishing affects comics.  So what are we missing?

What are we missing in technology?  Hell, we know the answer to that – EVERYTHING. 

In this incredible age of technology and media, we're missing things because we miss how things combine.  Easy to develop game engines and tools combine with easy DLC to change gaming.  Freelance sites let future writers find editors cheap, thus going around the limits of a publisher.

Change seems to sneak up on us because we miss how things come together.  If you want to start predicting the future with any kind of accuracy, start asking how things come together.

Let me close with a little game I find helps – pick any two pieces of technology, social change, etc.  Ask what happens when they combine.  Then pick another area of change and combine it with one of those elements – or both of them.

Go on, give it a whirl . . .

– Steven Savage