Career:
How cloud computing will change jobs.
News:
Over 50% of top newspaper publishers join the Fair Syndication COnsortium – I'm still figuring the FSC out. On one hand it seems to involve new revenue streams, sharing, and ads. On the other it seems like it's going to be big on tracking done use of content on sites and asking for cuts. Pay attention, this could turn into a morass of legal actions and bad feelings with no benefits to anyone. On the other hand if FCS works out some good content syndication methods, this could pay off or at least be a worthy experiment – and go beyond news.
Publishing:
Amazon will start doing print on demand of a huge amount of out of copyright books -Interestingly, these are also books digitized by Google. A lot of these are available of course as part of Google's book iniatives, so this seems to be a clear shot at Google in this case, continuing the Text Wars. However the use of further print on demand is intriguing since that technology is a potential Kindle/Reader/Slate/whatever electronic book competitor. Amazon seems to want to have it all ways.
Social Media:
Make-your-own-social-network company Ning raises $15 million in venture capital. Ning's been on my 'watch' list for awhile, and this moves it up – people are willing to sink money into them. However I haven't gotten a good grasp of Ning's strategy and want to watch how it goes before I put it into the 'send a resume' category. I will say Ning as a tool is getting a lot more use as of late and may be worth using either way.
MySpace will be providing email. A strategy I didn't forsee, it could get a lot of users (and help with some rebranding). Check out the news on Yahoo (below), and I think re-inventing email for social media may be a strategy more than one company is trying. It can't hurt, and this could stabilize MySpace a bit (which may help the social media industry overall).
Google Wave will have a sort of Beta, with invites in September – So go see if you can take a look.
Technology:
More on Yahoo: they've bought a social email company, Xoopit, but is working to sell HotJobs and Small Business. Sounds like they're consolidating for social media space.
Estimate on the cost of the Apple Tablet? Above $500 according to TechCrunch. Doesn't sound like much of a competitor in the Netbook space to me, which could mean Apple will rethinking this in a year or so. I see Netbooks as a major growing area, and think anyone in a geeky career should pay attention because they're a) cheap and useful, b) changing how people are using – and buying computers, c) further enhance the use of mobile computing.
Amazon aquires online footwear provider Zappos– I suppose it integrates into their business structure of doing more product. Still, very curious.
Video Games:
Sam Rami to direct Warcraft movie – This is a big thing for several reasons. Rami brings a reliable name and talent to the franchise, a good movie would boost Warcraft's profile even more, and it would also boost the visibility of MMO properties. Also frankly, as game-movie adaptions often aren't good no matter which way the adaption goes, a good one could also raise the attention of game properties.
– Steven Savage