News and Analysis

News of The Day 12/22/2010

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It's geek news time, but first . . . What you say? Someone set us up the Year End Roundups? Yep they're starting so let's get to:

Wait, and we've got predictions too?

Economics/Geekonomics:
New Jersey requests information from banks on foreclosures – with the possibility of freezing all foreclosures. basically the banks in question have to show reason NOT to suspend foreclosures. If this works out – or goes bad for the banks – I'd give it a good chance other states will follow suit.

Barry Ritholtz thinks Japan may be a surprise economic story in 2011. He's got some good arguments. May I also add it's relations with India may help.

Culture:
Tipping is irrational. OK that may seem obvious, but here's a discussion of part of it.

Demographics:
Where the smart people are – And not much is going to surprise you here – except I expected Seattle to be doing better.

Geek Law:
That ICE/Homeland security domain seizure? May have been very unsound. We're going to keep hearing about this one for awhile.

We've got the new Net Neutrality rules out and of course I'm fully expecting it to be lawsuit-enabling because no one is happy.  In a way that's good, as it increases the chance for better public awareness, but still . . .

Anime and Manga:
We have a director for the live Bakugan film. You didn't know there was going to be a live Bakugan film? Sorry to destroy your sweet sense of peace and serenity. To be fair the director, Harald Zwart, might be a good choice, but I have no idea how something like this will translate, and we'll end up with A.I.N.O. – Anime In Name Only.

Tokyopop's new store allows Print On Demand of out-of-print titles. They also experimented with DVD-on-demand. This is one to watch as A) others may follow, and B) this gives Tokyopop a POD infrastructure they can build out for saving money and to add new works.

Mobile:
AT&T buy's Qualcomm's Mobile Spectrum. Hopefully this can help them deal with some of their issues in service (or at least looks good).

Is Mobile malware a growing threat?

Publishing:
Does Kindle (as a device) have a finite limit of sales? Some thoughts on what appears to be an inevitable truth – there's a finite population to buy the things. The article suggests what we've wondered, if the device itself has a finite lifespan. I figure there is a natural limit, but am not sure what it is, or how it will affect business.

Couple starts magazine on shoestring, made $200 in revenue this year. Outsourcing and freelancing appear to be a part of it. Something to pay attention to if you have such ambitions.

Technology:
Fox continues to sell off digital assets. I wonder if that does make a MySpace selloff to Google viable . . .

Video Games:
Sony is expecting a good amount of PS3 sales in 2010-2011. I also wonder if DCU Online is going to help . . .

EA wants to do a movie on the Madden Curse. That curse, for you non-curse informed, is that the player that appears on covers of the Madden games will suffer some misfortune. No, I am not sure what to think either, but if people are throwing money around for this . . .

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Is having MMOs a significant advantage for a console?

– Steven Savage

The Production Revolution Isn’t For All: Marketing

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You're hoping to leverage the Production Revolution to get out your novel, your music, your comic, what have you.  I've been covering the reasons that the new tools for media creation and distribution aren't going to turn everyone into a potential media success (such as time and technical skill) and I'm going to continue to rain on the parade by noting another factor: marketing ability.

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The CorpTechPocalypse Is Upon Us

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I was thinking about our recently referenced articles that predict Corporate IT is ending:

The articles were fascinating, well-written, and even-handed despite the controversial subject matter.  I recommend you read them, but the author's points can be summed up simply: SaaS, consumer technology, and the U.S. economy are drivers that will lead companies to outsource a lot of IT – and outsource it to cloud and mobile businesses.

Though I think these articles are spot-on, and I wanted to add some more speculation to this – namely that this trend will not only occur, but are actually a version of a common economic transformation that happens after Recessions/Depressions, but one that seems different because it's technological.

In Richard Florida's The Great Reset, the authored noted how other economic downturns have often resulted in changes in what geographic regions get money, people, and industry.  People and money migrate from farm to factory, from city to city, even country to country, because after a major economic catastrophe different areas prosper than previously

An interesting thing has happened in this recession – it seems the big Megaregions that were already booming are going to be the wave of the future anyway.  There's not a lot of money and capital moving around like one would expect – the Big Areas are where it was and is happening.  If anything, as people want more urbanization and less suburban housing issues and commuting, they're heading to the regions where all the activity was happening anyway.

So our Great Reset seems to be Reset without any significant changes where business and people move to newly developed areas.

I'm thinking that conclusion may be wrong.  There is a move of industry and economics and people, but it's not a physical move.  It's a move of industry online.

The CorpTechPocalypse that the above author predicts, and I believe rightly, does represent a massive move of men and resources and industry.   It represents a move towards efficiency and doing things better and revolutionary change.  It's just it's happening by business functions and services moving online as opposed to different or new locations.

So The Great Reset really has produced a massive shift in industry (or one that is happening).  It's a move online, a move of taking jobs and positions and services that were inside companies and moving them to the cloud.  It's a move where people who support these things will have to change – or move into the megaregions we're all talking about.

This also leads to a second conclusion: The move of services online is not just backed by technology.  It's backed by economic history.  If Resets mean move and change of locations to places appropriate for the forthcoming economy, then we should expect such a move in this post-recession Reset.

If you work in corporate IT, I'd start thinking over your future plans very carefully.  You may want to get on top of history before it gets on top of you.

– Steven Savage