Frustration Friday: Applenesia

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Apple is on top.  Apple rules our world.  iI want my iPhone, my iPad, and my iSystem.

Sure there's some bumps.  Ping has spam.  Apple has higher prices than some.  There's concerns expressed by people about closed technology ecosystems that are very legitimate.

However, let's face it – Apple is on top.  Everyone talks about them, wants to be like them, praises them.

So, I'd now like to see some people kindly discuss why all the doomsaying about Apple that we've seen on and off the last twenty years was wrong.  Publicly.  In detail.

I'm not angry it happened.  In some cases the various Apple-will-die stories seemed relevant at the time.  However they all turned out to be dreadfully wrong, so can some of the journalists and pundits and writers please go back and explain why so many of us were dead wrong?

Would it be hard to stop the praise to look back and ask just what we were thinking here?  Maybe it'll help us get better at predicting and evaluating.

Would it hurt to explore what Apple did to survive all those many years?  Maybe we can learn some lessons.

Could we ask ourselves if the death-of-Apple stories were just a fad (much like the death-of-Twitter stories these days)?  Perhaps we can stop history from repeating itself, as it often does to our embarrassment.

So, please news pages and magazines, journalists and writers, take a moment and explore why Apple lived when there were many times its demise was predicted.  Give us books, or articles, or even blog posts.

You can even write the draft on your iPad if you want, to get you in the mood.

– Steven Savage

(By the way the title of this?  One of my lamest.  Seriously.)

Fannish Skills On The Job Search – Art

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I write a lot about using your fannish and hobby skills on the job.  It's sort of a big thing, what with this whole "Fan To Pro" title putting pressure on me.  But there's more to using the skills from your recreation in your profession – you can use them in other "professional areas", which I'm going to talk about in the weeks to come.

Namely, I'll be writing about how your fannish, geeky, and otaku skills can also be used in your job search.  It's even possible you have some skills you don't want to or can't use in your chosen career that are great to use on your job search.  You probably have a lot of unappreciated talents anyway (or at least ones that you may not be great at but you can leverage)

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News Of The Day 9/8/2010

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Jack is back, why Bowie is important, Selena Gomez goes MMO, and the Kno is a big name in raising money. The stars are out tonight in geek news!

Career:
What are you going to do less of? A nice thought-provoker.

Economics/Geekoomics:
MUST READ. A look at the Greek meltdown on the large and small scales that is a must-read as it also looks into the cultural and individual aspects of the economic collapse. From rampant tax cheating to land deals and more, you kind of get the impression Greece has lost its civic life and . . . isn't coming back anytime soon. Plenty of cautionary tales here. Also, I think the EU is going to be coping with this for a decade, and the bad blood could last LONGER.

US Infrastructure . . . kinda is lousy. This is bad news, but if something is done about it (say . . . stimulus spending and such) it could be a sign of where jobs are. Don't knock things like civic engineering as a geektastic job – it's got science, engineering, planning, history, and more.

Demographics:
Only 4% of people in the UK game industry are female.  Something to think of if you're a woman in IT in the UK.

Geek Law:
Jack Thompson Respawns. This time he is calling on the Secretary of Defense to stop the release of Medal of Honor. He's against a mishmash of things including the ability apparently to play the Taliban in multiplayer, the fact that he thinks it could be used for training, and some preorder issues.

Music:
A look at the importance of David Bowie. A good bit of history, some things to make you think, and a look at a legend. His influence extends from anime characters to Lady Gaga, so take a moment and reflect.

Publishing:
Wow. Educational tablet maker Kno raises $46 million in investment. It's challenging to be sure – they're up against the iPad and cheaper Android and Wintablets. However they are focused and have been raising a lot of cash. Resume time? Also if they succeed, I'd want to see just how they managed to make a balanced product in this market.

Social Media:
Zynga's adaption of Facebook Credits is for most everything involving Facebook. Note it's not for everything.

A look at how Ping may grow. I'm not sure myself, so I present this for speculation.

Technology:
Google Instant Is Available. Go on, try it, you know you want to.

Companies that provide 'Shadow IT' – stuff used in companies that isn't approved but is used for work. A look at what people are really doing, and a reminder that people will get their jobs done even if it means other tools. Besides good tools I also see this as a reminder of how unofficial adaption may be a great marketing tool.

Video Games:
Wizard 101 partners with . . Selena Gomez. Is this gaming truly gone mainstream? Seems like we're seeing more and more synergy moves as is, but this is a bit of an odd one of mixing a celebrety into the plot of an MMO.

No Final Fantasy XIII DLC. I'm not sure people's expectations for it had been maintained, but there you are. I'm wondering if they're sort of making a break with some past product as SquareEnix seems to want to go more virtual.

PopCap thinks the Facebook game era is ending.I'm not sure I believe that, but I think it can be diluted by other gaming opportunities.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Celebrety appearances in MMOs – good idea or bad idea?

– Steven Savage