News of the Day 5/27/2010

Nexon and Symantec have big plans, Barnes and Noble finally catches up on e-readers, and it's Facebook a go-go in your must-know geeky news!

Career:
Learn to manage your own expectations.

Economics:
OK I'm cynical about a sudden bounceback in the economy, but this bounce in the markets has me hopeful. A little. Kind of.

Housing prices still changing, and not in uniform ways. A good reminder – and perhaps some insight – on what's up in the housing markets and the utter weirdness involved.

Publishing:
Barnes and Noble creates its own eBook app. Not much detail but it's a start for them.

Social Media:
Facebook mania. First, there's the changes to privacy (here's how it works). They have a new android developer kit. Finally a new Q & A App which will apparently add features for information searching/research. Quite a lot going on – and I suspect the Android and Q&A parts were put out early to deal with the privacy mess that they may have solved.

Technology:
Symanetc wants to expand it's Norton offerings to many other security functions. Not a bad idea considering there's a lot more popular and portable personal devices. Might be worthwhile to keep in mind career-wise, since such efforts may mean hiring.

Video:
Podly wants to be your web video aggregator. Not enough details for me to say much, but the idea has me curious at least – it's certainly ambitious – and there's certainly a lot of video to aggregate.

Video Games:
Nexon is at it again, and bought a stake in another Korena gaming company for $59.8 million dollars. I confess I'm biased as I rather like Dungeon Fighter, but it seems they are seriously on the move. Now for you progeeks, maybe this is another place to look to send a resume – and on all counts, I wonder where they're going to go in the future.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Podly – great idea or doomed dream?

– Steven Savage

Is Everything an App?

iPhone Apps.  Android Apps.  Google TV will have Apps.  It seems everything is becoming an App.

Now I'm all for some interesting slang, but I think what we're seeing is something deeper here.

An "App" of course is short for Application, such as a Word Processor, only it seems the term is broadening.  You can turn your book into an App, you can make an App that's a game, you can make an App that interfaces with Social Media services.  It seems that the "App" really is a term for "something specific you do on a piece of technology."

I think this is great because it actually brings out an important truth about our media and our technologies – they're about doing things and getting information.  It's all Apps.

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Geeky Resumes and More: Know Your Audience

Video resumes.  Retaggr cards.  Portfolios on lovely-labeled DVDs.  LinkedIn.com profiles.  Personal web pages.

What counts as a "resume" today seems to be a collection of items and supplements, all swirling around the actual print (or electronic resume).  Today's resume is an amorphous, complex thing, that's frankly confusing – because there's just so many amazing and cool things we can do.  Let's call them "Resume Materials"

Some of us remember when all you needed was a cover letter and a resume and maybe a portfolio because that was all you could do.  Making a videotape or a Flash presentation and the like just wasn't something people did in their job searched.  Of course what people do now has been empowered by all the technology that . . . well people like us are using.

There's a lot of options for the progeeks out there to go beyond a simple resume and into a crazy world of amazing resume materials..  However, there's an important question to ask before you burn the DVDs, make the video interview, and soforth.

That question is . . . does it actually do any good?

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