News and Analysis

Sony is back with some surprising limits. An interesting alliance around games. LinkedIn's IPO is coming soon. Lots of news for progeeks, profans, and protaku . . .

Sony's Not-Quite-Over Outage:
Looks like Playstation Network is up in the US . . . but the Japanese government isn't letting it up in Japan. It's still erratic (mainly due to all the password changes). I've got a few comments at e-commerce times.

This has been drifting around a bit: Amazon.com's EC2 servers may have been used to do the Sony hack. That will be interesting to follow.

Economics/Geekonomics:
In case you hadn't heard, the US isn't raising it's Debt Ceiling – and here's a look at the history of the issue. Now as a warning, if this drags on it creates further economic uncertainty – and last I heard, past 10-11 weeks we have a chance for a serious meltdown. Paul Krugman chimes in with an opinionated but insightful piece about what's going on.

Comics:
An FPS multiplayer game in Gotham City? I have no idea what this is, if it's going to work, or if the dismal performance of Brink may affect such an plan. This just sounds like a weird way to dress up gang warfare in DC settings, so I want to watch this just to see what's up.

Want to work for IDW? A Senior Editor position is open.

Remakes:
Er . . . a poster and more info on the Muppets return/revival film. Thing.. I'm not sure what to say about this considering the weird poster and standard plot. Maybe if this tanks people will figure there's enough of the revival/remake schtick.

. . . and Seth MacFarlaine is remaking the Flintstones. I'm not sure why it needs to be remade.

Social Media:
Mashable's latest Social Media and tech event roundup if you're looking to learn, network, etc.

LinkedIn's IPO is the 19th. If you're enthused about this you're as big a Career Geek as I am. In all seriousness, this could be quite big as it may mean new directions for the company, can validate (or invalidate) the value of the company, and the results will be looked at by other possible IPO companies (say . . . Facebook).

Technology:
We've got some VC coming into mobile – mobile billing company Billing Revolution raises $6.6. million and tool-and-service company StackMob raises $7.5 million. First, these sound resume-worthy, second, I'm noticing a lot more VC investments below 10 mil – which I wonder is a new trend.

Barnes and Noble's now-tabletified Nook? 1 million app downloads in the first week. Appears successful . . . at least for Angry Birds.

Video:
Mirimax has a multiyear deal with Netflix for its movies, which include some serious fan favorites. More power for Netflix – and some interesting info on how availability may rotate or change to coincide with different events.

Video Games:
Pop Cap's first Android game will sell through Amazon.com. Now there's a partnership – and of course Amazon wants it's own Android sales platform, and a PopCap game is pretty good attention fuel. Powerful partnership and shows how Amazon is going into all kinds of content – so you better be ready.

Duke Nukem was going to have a gay robot sidekick and the implementation of it just seems weird and odd. You know as much as I love Gearbox (and am probably about to play Borderlands AGAIN), I'm starting to feel the Duke property is just cursed.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: How dedicated is PopCap's relationship with Amazon?

– Steven Savage

Sony is still out,jobs at Cisco are going, and Square Enix had a bad, bad day.  It's not a good time for a lot of people . . .

Sony Disaster-Palooza:
Reports are drifting in of the outage taking a toll on PS3 sales and trade-ins. No hard statistics yet, so I'd be cautious about jumping too far to conclusions. Still I'd say there's enough to A) investigate further, and B) assume there's some negative impact.

Cisco Layoff-Palooza:
Cisco is looking at some hefty layoffs. I remember when they were a guaranteed thing (then again they also have been the guaranteed layoff thing, they have cycles). This may A) kill some confidence in IT, B) will slightly strain the employment pool of Silicon valley further, and C) lead to competitors glad to come in and take a swipe.

Business:
Seth Godin hits it out of the park again by noting when you believe in brand exceptionalism you're stuck. A short but good read.

Ecosystems:
MUST READ: A look at the hidden empire of Amazon.com. This explores the power and reach of Amazon, which is likely more extensive than you realize.

Fails:
(I'm thinking maybe THIS is the new category we need)
Eidos was hacked and some personal information may have been compromised. Nothing big apparently, but in an age of so many failures, I bring it up just in case.

Comics:
NBC didn't pick up the much-questioned 'Wonder Woman' TV series. Which sounds like a good idea – and now maybe something dignified can be done with the property (hey, perhaps you want to make a pitch). I do agree with the article – I feel bad for Adrianne Palicki, who seems to have been the best choice in the show.

Social Media:
Facebook apparently hired a PR firm to smear Google – This one's been rocketing around the internet. Now it's not going to be a fatal blow for Facebook, but it looks bad and clearly is going to re-energize rivalries and mistrust.

Video:
Hulu extends its contracts. Still, as the article notes, its future is in question.  So Hulu is going forward, but it seems people aren't sure why.

Video Games:
Ouch – Square Enix warns its had some massive losses. Obviously the quake didn't help, but it still means title cut, layoffs, strategy changes, and more. Big name, big company, so see what this does to the game industry.

Now some good news in gaming: Gamevil reports a rise in smartphone profits (and produce some good titles from what I hear). Nippon Ichi returns to profitability and reminds me of my love for Disgaea (sadly I didn't like any one past, Sega Sammy actually doubled profits.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What will Square Enix do in their situation?

– Steven Savage