Technology

MUST READ: Facebook and Stock Prices

by

Unless you’re an econogeek like me you probably aren’t interested in the intracacies of the stock market, and even then some arcana may make your eyes glaze over.  I reccomend checking out this nice summary of why Facebook’s stock price is problematic.  It’s a grand example of how the price plunge affects the company and the issues it faces – oh and that the price will probably remain low because many activities the company may do BECAUSE of it’s issues can end up driving it down/keeping it low.

At this point we’re probably going to see all sorts of hang-wringing by “experts” who by and large, proved to be idiots, but really when you read the article you can see how counting on a high stock price was bad, and you know that we here have been pretty cynical about it.  So, no none of this should be a surprise.

Personally I hope Facebook and Zynga get people to be a lot more cautious about stock, stock options, and IPOs.  Then again it seems there’s less starry-eyed goodwill than the hideous dot-bomb era, so there is that.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/

Gaming, Opportunity, Convergence

by

So last week it was announced that the Ouya is going to have OnLive on it.  Frankly I expected to see a lot more on that, but it didn’t seem to make much of an impression.  Just another case of technology converging.

Of course the way I see this potential alliance is different.  It means a service that streams games (that don’t run on Android) is going to be playable on an open Android device.  Or in short, your $99 Ouya is going to let you play stuff that you’d normally need a far more powerful machine for.  Sure you have to pay for the service, but we’re talking quite a benefit here.

Yet, I saw a lot less speculation on it, so let me speculate more – and extend this.

Read more

HBO, Netflix, And Bad Relationships

by

Well the whole “Twimance” causing a stir on the internet isn’t the only confusing relationship.  Closer to less good-looking is the fact that HBO won’t be partnering with Netflix.  Considering they have some major properties, this isn’t good for Netflix, which is having it’s own problems as of late – and though I have confidence in them, they are in a rather rocky industry.

But hey, HBO has their own streaming, right?  And then there’s Crackle.  And Hulu, and . . . well we’re up to our armpits in various streaming services all of a sudden.  Of course they don’t all carry each other’s stuff, or in the case of some anime, everyone carries it (Really, do THIS many services need to carry “Queen’s Blade?” Wait, nevermind.)

So it’s some not-quite-walled gardens, battling it out.  This misses a larger factor near and dear to this cable-cutter’s heart.

Namely, after awhile, some people may not give a damn about series if they have to go through a lot of rigamarole to get them, or get a specialty service they don’t want, or watch something drop off of a service.  It’s like taking all the annoyances about cable and adding brand new ones.

So at some point do people stop caring about The Hot Thing?  Or waiting for the DVDs?  Or pursuing alternate media (I can just read Game Of Thrones, even if it lacks the awesome of Dinklage).

I see this as a possible danger because in trying to keep up with big things, you have to face all these service annoyances.  If you get cable, you face cable annoyances.  Really, at some point people may just not care and buy eps on iTunes, get DVDs, or just give the hell up (which in a way I kind of did). There’s enough media out there that the Big Thing is only big because others say so.

I see this re-dilution of media access actually being bad for the media companies.  It looks bad, creates ill will, and diminishes interest.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/