News and Analysis

Career:
Use a cover letter template for fast and effective cover letters – Good advice.

Economics/Geekonomics:
Consumer confidence appears to be declining – Shocking to no one of course. I note this . . . well just to note it.

See how one release can affect stock prices: What happened to Garmin and TomTom when Google mentioned free GPS 2.0 on Android. Some more thoughts on this and more here.

Mobile:
Is the blackberry doomed? I have to say yes – Android and iPhone offer more compelling, organized, standard options. If you develop for Blackberry, do pay attention to this article.

Motorola's Droid arrives November 6 – So sit back, grab the popcorn, and see what happens. Get a hands on view at Engadget.

Technology:
Dilithium Networks lands $10.9 in venture funds. They deal with mobile and converged video. Sounds like a good investment considering the increased move to mobile and all the action the market. Toss them a resume?

Video:
An argument for why Hulu charging would be a good thing – Not sure I buy it as long-term acceptance could be throttled by short-term annoyance. Still a good read.

– Steven Savage

Career:
Five handy tips on writing cover letters.

Hate Networking? So does Laurie of Punk Rock HR. However she still shares some great tips for those of you that don't hate it – or want to build up to tolerating it.

Economics/Geekonomics:
Guess what? Big Banks are not necessarily more efficient. Keep up on this issue because it will keep coming up in the economy . . . (also need I say a big bank may not be the best place to work?)

Law:
Judge rules former Midway execs didn't decieve people – and this sad end of the company apparently comes to a close.

Publishing:
Barnes and Noble won't just sell Nooks – it'll sell the Que – In stores. The Que is amore expensive reading device, and they don't see it as a competitor with the Nook. But this tells me B&N is ready to invest heavily in the potential of e-readers, even more than I thought. They're also into cooperation, which could be an interesting strategy in the Everything Wars – could it be a form of dilution strategy to go for a no-dominant-winner result. We need to see how/if their moves pay off, but I'm positive (and thinking this may provide career-worthy opportunities). More here.

On that note, there's some evidence from the UK that E-books are increasing interest in libraries. Good to know if you're in the geeky profession of working in a library – and also telling about potential ways your works may get to people if you're a writer.

Social Media:
MySpace is still moving forward. It may bring it's music service to MSN and Share content with Facebook. Yes, even a potential teamup with an old rival. MySpace's re-invention continues, and it's going to be interesting to watch. It seems to be a mixture of more focus and see-what-sticks. They're certainly not gone yet.

Technology:
The Apple Tablet could be a media device – and here is a discussion of what media it could host, focusing initially on comic books. There's also apparent attemtps to shop it to Australian media companies. There's Apple Tablet/iPad news coming thick and fast recently, so I'd keep up at TechMeme for the next few days.

Video Games:
The next Rock Band will apparently focus on The Who. A good choice, but I think that in a year the whole specialized-Rock-Band-thing is going to be wrung out. I'm concerned this (along with fitness games) is going to kick off a larger search-for-fad in gaming for a few years that won't be good for the industry.

Gamebryo development engine gets more expansions – Looks like Emergent Game Technologies isn't slowing down.

– Steven Savage