News and Analysis

It's a good news/bad news day. Everyone seems to be landing venture capital, amazon is doing awesome, yet Goldman Sach, Bang-Zoom and Hulu have bad days. Throw in the iPhone Legal Drama (you knew it was coming) and we're having a busy geek news day!

Career:
Sell yourself at an interview – but don't brag. Some helpful focusing tips.

Economics/Geekonomics:
The Goldman-Sachs hearings at the Capitol are underway. You can find summaries all over, but Naked Capitalism has some good stuff as always, and likely more to follow. How bad is it? Jim Cramer is down on Goldman (not that I consider him reliable at all, but still).

Mixed reports on employments and layoffs. We've had a decreasing trend of mass layoffs, with some mini-spikes, but the sheer amount of layoffs has been amazing.

Geek Law:
There's an expanding criminal probe over the whole Gizmodo-iPhone issue which has included one search warrant of a Gizmodo editor's home. This is more complicated than it may appear, dragging in laws on stolen property, journalistic boundaries, and more.

Anime and Manga:
CEO of Bang Zoom entertainment says his company may not be doing anime VA work. He blames fans watching fan-subbed stuff, and seems doubtful about online monetization. He doesn't get a good reception. What I take from this is that Bang Zoom is having trouble – not that it's unusual. Read the comments to get some interesting views.

Movies:
Warner Brothers wants to do a Space Invaders film. Yeah, I know. My best advise is make it a retro-sci fi deliberately goofy story.

Publishing:
Amazon continues to do awesome. Are you really surprised?

Science:
Biotech Joule lands $30 million in investment. Their idea is a kind of artificial photosynthesis that produces fuel. Sounds like a great idea – and this is a kind of very out-of-the-box green thinking that seems to be getting attention. So they've got $30 million, they're in geeky area Cambridge Mass, and they do cool stuff – so why don't they have your resume?

(And again, is it like a lot of Geektastic investment is in Massachucetts? It's a nice state, if you can stand the weather, and Boston is quite a cool city . . .)

Social Media:
Mobile Payments Company Zong has a deal with Facebook and another $15 million in funding. Sounds like they've got a lot going on, they have locations in 3 countries, and $15 million to play with. If they manage their good fortune well I sense a strong future.

(OK, really, is today Big Investment In Stuff day?)

Technology:
Marketing/Sales web tool company Marketo raises $10 Million in investment. They've been growing well, their tools link with Salesforce, sounds like a good deal. So come on, send a resume – they're in San Mateo, California, which is a great place!

Google A look at how people make money on free software, and what other industries can learn. Basic summary is you have to move forward, you can't move back, and you monetize differently. Again, must read.

Video:
Hulu's UK talk collapse, making a UK version less likely, at least for now. I'm sure they'll try again. Sounds like some UK deals were already in the works with other providers. Ups and downs of an international market, though I'm wondering if this setback will lead to competitors trying to take advantage of it.

Video Games:
Square Enix founds a studio for more edgy games titled Extreme Edges. The take in the article is this provides good brand differentiation, which is a good point. Sounds like a smart move – and it telegraphs their preferences to their audience.

Infinity Ward still loosing headcount. On top of that there's a Half-billion dollar lawsuit brought against Activision by 38 plaintiffs (some still working at Activision and Infinity Ward). That's a lot of people who may be willing to dish a lot of dirt. I think this thing actually got uglier.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What do you think the effects of the lawsuit against Activision will be?

-Steven Savage

Games into movies into . . . TV shows? Greece melts down further, EA's star rises, and IMVU is doing great yet no one is paying attention. It's must-know geek news time!

Career:
Some reasons to have an online resume. Not sure it's for everyone – or posting a straight up resume is a great idea – but there's a few things to think of.

Economnics/Geekonomics:
And there goes the Greek Bond Market, which basically says there's low confidence in Greece at least for the short to mid term, or at least their chance for loans. It also doesn't sound like current loans will cover much. My take is that Greece can be kept from collapsing totally, but I don't see anyone wanting to prop it up until a full recovery (or re-alignment). At best, the damage will be mitigated – and this will affect the Eurozone (though keep in mind Greece has an economy smaller than some US States).

Big tech companies hoard cash – There seems to be less merger, acquisition, and funding from some of the big names, who appear to be playing it safe overall. This obviously doesn't help economic re-alignmnet (still not saying recovery . . .), but suggests that when the economic situation does improve, there's a chance for a waterfall of cash being used for investments, acquisitions, research, etc.

Population Boom? Nope according to this author, a population crash is coming, and it'll reshape our economy. I also predict a remake of Rojin Z.

The Bearded One Speaks, Paul Krugman notes people are missing the fact that 93% of Subprime mortgage securites rated AAA are now junk. In short, a lot of those fancy investment vehicles turning subprime loans into investments? They got rated high and turned out to be lousy. Rating agencies are important to the economy, and this points at some nasty corruption.

Geek Law:
No charges yet, but there could be legal, criminal action over the 'lost' iPhone. Just so you know.

Movies:
Avatar is the fastest selling Blu-Ray disk of all time. And so it continues. Avatar's success is due to more than 3D, and I think this confirms it – it had spectacle, a classic-basic plot, and some pretty good actors under all the CGI.

Multimedia:
SyFy channel wants to do a Movie based on the game Red Faction that may, in turn, spawn a TV series, and they're hopeful it influences the next game. They also are aiming for a kids show based on game DeBlob. Goofy name aside, SyFy has had some interesting productions (Alice and Tin Man), and this sounds like some rather ambitious synergy.

Social Media:
Twitter buys Text-Messaging infrastructure/software company Cloudhopper. Twitter has been using them for awhile, and they're a small company, but it shows twitter is still moving forward.

A large-scale look at what the Facebook announcements mean as well as what can go wrong. A good read for everyone involved in Social Media (which, tangentally, is everyone), and it shows the ambition of Facebook's goals.

IMVU has a revenue jump. It looks like it's virtual goods-based. Pretty good for them. IMVU seems to get forgotten in many discussions of social media – as we can see, you shouldn't. Also more money? Wonder if you should see if they're hiring . . .

Technology:
Now spammers are eploying people to get around captcha. The never ending-war against spam and spam blocking produces some pretty strange results. I'm fascinated by the idea spammers will use cheap labor for such technocal endeavors.

People think of Apple products as relatively closed, but interestingly openness has been a benefit for them. A thought-provoking look at their merger of open and closed over the years.

Sony to stop making 3.5 disk drives. And thus an era is over.

Large amount of Godaddy WordPress blogs hacked – Story is still coming in. WordPress is pretty widely used, as is Godaddy, so I want o hear more about what's gone on.

Video Games:
Trion Is Back – With 3 games and a lot of drive – and some interesting new technology. No idea how they're going to fare after their recent ups and downs, but some of the technology and ambition intrigues me.

EA breaks into the Fortune 500. Another gaming milestone. I'm sure EA feels even more pressure now, but this also makes them look good.

Five more employees leave Infinity Ward. No one expresses surprise.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Will EA's breaking into the Fortune 500 change their fortunes?

– Steven Savage