News of the Day 5/27/2010

Nexon and Symantec have big plans, Barnes and Noble finally catches up on e-readers, and it's Facebook a go-go in your must-know geeky news!

Career:
Learn to manage your own expectations.

Economics:
OK I'm cynical about a sudden bounceback in the economy, but this bounce in the markets has me hopeful. A little. Kind of.

Housing prices still changing, and not in uniform ways. A good reminder – and perhaps some insight – on what's up in the housing markets and the utter weirdness involved.

Publishing:
Barnes and Noble creates its own eBook app. Not much detail but it's a start for them.

Social Media:
Facebook mania. First, there's the changes to privacy (here's how it works). They have a new android developer kit. Finally a new Q & A App which will apparently add features for information searching/research. Quite a lot going on – and I suspect the Android and Q&A parts were put out early to deal with the privacy mess that they may have solved.

Technology:
Symanetc wants to expand it's Norton offerings to many other security functions. Not a bad idea considering there's a lot more popular and portable personal devices. Might be worthwhile to keep in mind career-wise, since such efforts may mean hiring.

Video:
Podly wants to be your web video aggregator. Not enough details for me to say much, but the idea has me curious at least – it's certainly ambitious – and there's certainly a lot of video to aggregate.

Video Games:
Nexon is at it again, and bought a stake in another Korena gaming company for $59.8 million dollars. I confess I'm biased as I rather like Dungeon Fighter, but it seems they are seriously on the move. Now for you progeeks, maybe this is another place to look to send a resume – and on all counts, I wonder where they're going to go in the future.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Podly – great idea or doomed dream?

– Steven Savage

News of the Day 5/25/2010

Legal efforts against Apple, Atari seems to be on its way back, and LinkedIn and Twitter seal their relationship! It's Geek News Time!

Geek law:
Department of Justice investigating Apple over music? Sounds interesting . . .

Comics:
It appears Marvel is leaving behind the $2.99 comic.

Publishing:
How to monetize news. A good read since you could apply this to other media.

Social Media:
LinkedIn is pretty much a full Twitter client. Makes sense of course. Good for Twitter, but even more for LinkedIn, which has been doing a good job of expanding what it does – a good model to analyze. And I hope you have a LinkedIn account . . .

Technology:
30% of people thinking of a Netbook got an iPad? Apparently so. Sounds like the iPad made a dent inits intended marketplace.


Video Games:

Games industry growing, but growing slowly. An analysis of just what's going on. Quite a good read – and pointing out that there are more gamers – but the amount being made per gamer is less.

Atari's fortunes slightly improved. Not out of the woods yet, but at least a sign of hope.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Will other social networks follow in LinkedIn's Footsteps?

– Steven Savage

Self Publishing: Everything Old Is New Again

In the last year it seems everyone and their brother is into self-publishing.  Sure, it started with Lulu.com cornering the market, but Amazon got in on the game, Harlequin has their venture, and it seems every month or three there's some new endeavor out there.  With so many self-publishing options it seems like a new age of print material, both electronic and physical.

I'm all for self-publishing; indeed, I am self-published.  However I can't say it's exactly new.  We've had self-publishing for years, we've had unrestricted access to eyeballs for any author for well over a decade.

We called it the World Wide Web.

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