News Of The Day 6/22/2010

Plenty of people raising venture capital, virtual goods are good, and the iPad saves a classic magazine. Gear up for must-know progeek news goodness!

Career:
Why you may want a professionally written resume. Resume writing services are there for a reason – and you might find it's worth it.

Economics/Geekonomics:
Expect home prices to continue to fall into 2011.  Expect me to buy one . . . probably never.

Mobile:
Mobile Virtual goods? $168 million in revenue last year. Looks like a good market is out there for such things, with quite a base of users.

Publishing:
Gourmet Magazine revived as iPad App. Tablets giving magazines a new lease on life? Not surprising, and of course, that will only encourage more people to try this approach.

Social Media:
What Facebook is doing right. They've taken a lot of hits – let's take a look at what they're doing right.

Technology:
Apple has sold 3 Million iPads. No one is surprised. Frankly when people talk about the iPad competes with this device or that device they forget it competes with MANY devices. Tablets are here folks, they're not going away, Apple set the trail . . .

Investment Roundup and people who may need your resume: Clearwire raises $290 million, Playdom raises $33 million and wants to start acquiring other companies, and finally game-with-your-mind company Neurosky raises $11.8 million – maybe that's the next thing beyond the motion-controlled gaming?

Video:
There's tons of Wrestling suddenly coming to YouTube. Quite a nice deal, for quite a dedicated fandom. Now what other dedicated media properties and phenomena might YouTube pursue . . .

Video Games:
There's a subset of social gamers that provide the major profits in virtual goods. Food for thought – people spend a lot or spend nothing, essentially.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What other media groups, specific shows or events, could benefit from an arrangement with YouTube?

– Steven Savage

News Of the Day 6/17/2010

More E3, trouble in the EU, and lots of motion in gaming – and media. It's must-know jobs for career geeks!

Economics/Geekonomics:
Next up in the European Disunion, Span seems ready to cause trouble over how its banks are treated. How? By releasing results of stress tests for banks – which will mean of course challenging others to do the same, like say, France and German who are sort of on the hook to solve the financial issues in Europe.

Catch up on where Silicon Valley (and it's counterparts) may go with an interesting quick interview with the president of Silicon Valley Joint Ventures.

Are we witnessing the end of 'Over-simplified Capitalism'? This article argues yes, noting that simplistic and contradictory ideas of the 'invisible hand' have gotten us into the current mess.

Anime:
I think we may have the next big anime sensation – Hot Topic is carrying Black Butler merchandise. If you're not familiar with Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji, think of it as 'Jeeves and Wooster' with demons and death gods and a disturbingly handsome perfect butler. You got it – fandom fuel.

Comics:
Comics is an industry that has its ups and downs. But did you ever think of store demographics? Here's some speculation on a possible Manhattan Comic Shop Meltdown. One of those things we may never think of . . .

Geek Law:
Oracle in lawsuit saying they bilked federal money. Not good for them, not the only suit. Oracle's pricing strucutres aren't wildly popular anyway, and ths will probably ma people wonder what kind of deal they'e getting as is.

Yes, Joe Lieberman wants the president to have a kind of kill switch for internet companies. Or in short, extending emergency powers to the internet – including shutoff orders to companies. Why am I not comfortable with this?

Media:
CFO's at media comapnies are big on digital and mobile media even as things aren't pleasant in the market. So you have a good idea of where media companies will be putting their efforts, and where you'll want to put yours.

Movies:
Is Pixar losing it's originality? With so many sequels, the question is raised.

Publishing:
Anyone remember Quark, and its use in publications? Yeah, me either. Anyway, it appears that they're back and hankering to get a piece of the market from Adobe with some new partnerships. Sounds interesting, and if they take advantage of current market trends, it may position them well. Plus Adobe has enough issues as it is, so this might alter their dynamic. Now can Quark Express make it easier to make a compliant ePub please . . .

Social Media:
Privacy groups still want more changes at Facebook. My guess is Facebook is going to follow their lead. Now if they're further emboldened, what other high-profile companies will come under scruitiny – and how many are, but we don't know as Facebook is in the spotlight? (is it your company?)

Technology:
Hey programmers, maybe your future is using retailer APIs.


Video:

CBS is experimenting with HTML 5 and seems quite positive on it, even if the experiences are limited. It seems rather obvious the iPad is one of the big drivers towards HTML 5, so ignore it at your own peril if you're a developer or in online video.

Video Games:
Of course here's your E3 Roundup.

Live-stream gaming and OnLive competitor Gaikai has signed up EA as a partner and will carry some of their games. Sounds like a good move for them – and makes it look like there will be a lot of headbutting with OnLive. Why would companies want their games on one service, after all? Still I'm cynical about this streaming-gaming idea, but I'll watch what happens.

67% of households in the USA playing video games. Considering the many sources, not surprising. Now you have a statistic to throw in the face of people who wonder why you want a game career.

Mythic lays off more people. I'm starting to wonder if the Warhammer fantasy game is going to survive all this.

QUESTION OF THE DAY:Is the Facebook privacy issue going to spread to other social media services?

– Steven Savage

News of the Day 6/16/2010

E3, E3, E3, oh and E3. Let's get to the Geek News that's E3 . .. and beyond.

Career:
Small improvements add up in your career. Some good advice for those of you feeling your life is improving too slowly.

Thinking you can't change careers? A look at some myths holding you back.

Be cool and catch up on Goldman Sachs Facts with this infographic and data dump. Mmmmm, fast knowledge delivered pretty!

Social Media:
AOL sells Bebo. Unhappy the news is leaked. So I guess we're making them more unhappy reposting this. The sale isn't closed, and speculation it's part of an overal plan of AOL to sell itself. Of course AOL is also heading for a content service, so I'm wondering just what their plan is – if there's just one.

Interesting. Socialtext wants to help integrate social features into existing enterprise applications. This sounds pretty neat, as it'd leverage people's knowledge of those applications and social media.

Ning partners with CafePress, Heyzap to offer shops and games in their social networks. Still not quite sure Ning is going to pull this off after their big move-to-pay, but it's at least an attempt – I just don't feel they can survive after annoying so many users.

Technology:
Stealth Startup Affirmed Network raises nearly eleven million dollars in investments. Not much data on them, but they're in the Boston area, which is rather geektastic, so hey, get a resume ready . . .

Thoughts from the creator of Google news (and the writer) on how journalism will change in the next five years. It's a lite article, but has some things to think about.

Also Microsoft Office 2010 is out and . . . almost no one seems to care. Honestly, there's surprisingly few articles on it, I couldn't even find one that seemed worth reading.

Television:
Test CGI for a Blue Beetle TV series. Has a Sentai/Rider feel to it, might work out – certainly looks good just in tests, and the character has new appreciation thanks to Batman: Brave and the Bold.

Video:
Wow. Youtube adds in-browser video editing tools. Simple, yes, but I've seen people do amazing stuff with simple. Beyond the technical achievements, note that this further empowers users – which in turn builds brand loyalty. Wonder if they'll let you re-download the clip in a preferred format afterwards . . .

Video Games:
Kotaku does a roundup of E3 Day One so you can catch up on everything. Penny Arcade has a more humorous, NSFW summation here. With so much news, we'll be covering the geek-career highlights here.

Best Buy at Gamestop let you pre-order Playstation Move. That was fast. Of course they figure it's a good thing and they want in on it – and want to ride the E3 wave. Now about that PS3 surround sound . . .

Microsoft Disses 3D gaming, notes its more for the future. I have to agree, especially when you see the price tag to play PS3 3D – ouch. Then again that's Sony and it's throw-it-at-the-wall strategy. Gives us an idea of where Microsoft is NOT going (and if you're interested in 3D games, who you may be making them for).

SquareEnix ups their interest in western RPGs: they own the Dungeon Siege franchise outright now. It seems to me SquareEnix's interests obviously lie in the West as much as possible, and they're working to get the properties they need.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: AOL will inevitably be bought.  Who do you think is the best candidate?

– Steven Savage