Google! Verizon! Sony! Game Phone! Economy! Bad! Twitter! Button! Plenty of news to get excited about!
Career:
The worst-paying college degrees and the best paying college degrees. Oddly, both contain highly geeky stuff. These aren't guarantees, but they are a reminder some degrees require work to make a good living – and other good profitable degrees have their own requirements (say, a ton of math).
Economics/Geekonomics:
Lots of people walking away from home equity loans. Those were the loans you took out on the value of your home, so you can kind of guess a lot of these loans are going strikingly wrong right now. Sounds like these loans are even harder to collect on than usual, and many loan companies are taking a (further) bath. Some interesting stories and speculations. My takeaway on this is to keep your career the hell out of the financial industry unless you're very sure of the company and it's stability and practices because companies are still loosing money like crazy. Also it seems that anger against banks and financial institutions is continuing to grow, especially as people become more aware of and experience the fallout of the financial meltdown.
And on the subject of housing, foreclosure activity is up in July. It's not evenly distributed, but the big metro/mega regions seem to show an overall decline – but still up in July. Some good data here (and what might be a useful site).
A handy Flash Map of unemployment rates in the US.
Globally, if you're a teenager the job market is awful. Links to many depressing reports.
Richard Florida goes Full Metal Geekonomist with a long piece on how the US can have a high speed recovery.
Google/Verizon:
The Technology Liberation Front further analyzes the Google/Verizon document and compares it to the recent FCC proposals. Very sober and interesting analysis – and a reminder that this isn't a treaty or anything.
Publishing:
Yet another look at the e-book shift that has a good sense of perspective. Also made me realize it's time for me to devise a better eBook strategy for myself . . .
Social Media:
Expect this to start a trend: Delta is selling airplane flights via its Facebook page. Facebook as storefront would be a boost to it – and a challenge to other companies (say, Google).
Twitter release it's own Tweet Button, which is pretty much TweetMeme's button. Looks like I may have to change some code . . .
Technology:
Bonnie called it. Sony Ericsson is ging to introduce a PSP-go-like smartphone – and it's running android. First of all, good move for them (despite bad past memories of the N-gage) as it uses a lot of existing tech and goodwill. Secondly, this might provide an interesting competitor to other phones. Third, I wonder if this could mean that someone is going to want to duplicate the efforts of Aurora Feint and their Open Feint platform being expanded into Android – or buy them outright. Either way, Sony stays on the "try and work for list" and I'd keep an eye on Android gaming companies too . . .
While veryone is talking about Verizon, Google, and Apple, keep an eye on China which is jumping on the "internet of things" bandwagon – with interlined physical object technology.
Video:
AppleTV to get some changes, become iTV, with some new limits, and apparently will have its own apps or set of apps.
Video Games:
The VP and Creative director of KingsIle, the people behind Wizardry 101 talks gaming, social media, and more.
Writing:
We geeks are prominent enough that there's a geek romance novel set at a comic convention. To which I add A) awesome, B) I want a movie.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: So, what are your impressions of the SonyGamePhone – and what do you think needs to be done to create a solid product line?
– Steven Savage