Steven Savage

Lots of everything wars, as cable companies talk to the FCC about new rules, the Kindle may be getting a browser, and everyone on the planet wants to add Geolocation to their media. I can see your house – and your resume – from Google maps! Let's go – it's progeek, profan, and protaku news time!

Career:
Man puts his resume on Google Maps.

Economics/Geekonomics:
A further look at jobless demographics by education – That makes the point that we've got more long-term unemployed in the United States, and the problem that means.

Another look at the improving(?) labor market – There could be an issue with employed people not wanting to leave jobs. That also suggests to me that openings are in areas with some restrictive qualifications.

For some fun, a look at slang that has evolved in or been widely adopted in the Great Recession – At least some of these terms may predate the recession, but still an interesting read.

Geek Law:
If your company is in the UK and uses social media, prepare for stricter advertising/marketing regulations. Roughly, you're not just responsible for what's on your site, but also on social networks.

Media:
Time Warner leads a group to ask FCC to change programming deal rules – After several blackouts and high-profile tiffs, this is understandable (say, in the wake of the Cablevision mess). Comcast is interestingly absent.

Netflix wants to stream movies to your DS? They seem to be seeing if people would go for it. Wouldn't you want to work on that team . . .

Publishing:
Borders has begun job cuts.

Technology:
Amazon pulls out of Colorado associate advertising due to legislation in the state that 'increases the compliance burden' and sounds like it could evolve into online sales tax. Not the only case of this going on as well – a good read.

Next up in Everything Wars – Location Wars! Twitter has/is adding geolocation to its service, jumping on the latest bandwagon to destroy people's ideas of privacy. Geolocation seems to be the next big thing judging by Foursquare, Facebook's interest, etc. For me, that's starting to go a bit far. Still if you're in tech, you need to be aware of this – and if you're in social media, the same.

Blackberry outages continue – It's sad I didn't know about it until day 2. A blow to Blackberry since they've got other competitors out there.

It looks like Amazon wants a browser on it's Kindle, judging by a recent job posting. More and more I see Amazon trying to evolve Kindle into some kind of e-reader plus – a tool for reading with many other functions (just the way the iPhone is a phone with other functions). I think this points to them making a play to have the Kindle be around a long time – not a temporary device as I first thought.

Video Games:
Beg pardon? EA teams up with baseball player Curt Shilling as well as author R.A. Salvatore and artist Todd McFarlaine for a new epic RPG. OK that's an unusual cast there – Shilling sort of seems to be the outlier, but as I understand it he's a gaming enthusiast. This sounds like a case of EA wanting to create a seriously powerful new IP.

God of War III cost $44 million to make. Just so you know.

Don't expect World of Warcraft on your console. MMO developers, keep this in mind because that could be a gate to success.

Find out just what you sign away when you post your app to the iPhone App Store.

Emergent is back in the news with a new CEO and growth via social MMOs. Sounds like they're thinking broader and smaller.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: So, is the Netflix-to-DS a viable idea or straight up impractacal?

– Steven Savage

It looks like it's experiment time – new publishing methods, new platforms for Valve, and more! Put on your lab coat and geek out to the must-know news for professional geeks, fans, and otaku!

First off, The New York Times wants to hire a dozen techs and a social media guru. Agree with some of their paywall/metered plans or not, this could be a great opportunity . . .

Career:
Good networking is all about followup. Very true. Good advice, especially for those of you working to build networking skills.

How job seekers are leveraging social media. Some useful ideas for you!

Economics:
Must Read: The Atlantic looks at the impact of the recession on culture and country in America. Lots of information here, so as soon as you finish this news report go read this.

The EU sounds like it's backing assistance for Greece during it's economic problems (though those seem largely self-induced). This is a big deal geekonomically, because if the EU can effectively survive the troubles of some of it's members, and build institutions to help it navigate future problems, it's economic stability – and unity – is assured. Coping with the problems of member nations effectively makes membership something more will want and few will want to leave. A failure on the other hand . . .

Consumers leveraging more credit – Which may, despite how it sounds, be a sign of more spending and possible growth. I'm not too sure here. A bit more from Econompic.

Media:
The folks behind Techmeme and Memorandum roll out a new media-news aggregator, Mediagazer. Looks indespensible to those of you working in media and related industries – you'll want to bookmark this one.

Movies:
Nope, Avatar didn't get best picture in the Oscars, though you did get Ben Stiller in Na'vi makeup. A roundup here at io9. Not as geeky a group of winners as we predicted (even if it was a hyper-geeky amount of nominees) – and I'm sure there will be many an argument over the choices. A fun roundup of interesting Oscar losers for consideration. Congrats to the winners – there were a lot of good films here.

Publishing:
Barnes and noble to bundle print AND e-books together? Pretty much buy-print-get-the-e-book-discounted deal, but it'll be interesting to see if it works for sales or provides any insights. Those of you in publishing, stay tuned. They also have some leadership changes that seem pro-digital.

Technology:
DataXu raises $11 million dollars. Never heard of them? They make ad bidding/optimization engines – and we all know there's money in online ads. Might be worth a resume if you're in Boston.

OK developers, here's what HTML 5 will mean to you. Heavy going if you're not at least mildly code/HTMl savvy, but informative. However the author predicts full adaption is five to ten years away . . .

Time Warner to sign deals with Verizon, AT&T? Apparently to use their heavy presence to help them provide better service (AT&T is apparently quite overloaded in New York). Another part of the Everything Wars goes to an . . . Everything peace? Could be good news for all involved, and may be an exaple of good cooperation. This also might be used as an example of the importance of net neutrality as well.

Sony to update PS3 for 3D – specifically games and movies. Interesting bit of news in the recent 3d craze. Not sure entirely what it means – but hey, it's Sony.

Video Games:
Game studio Cling files for Bankrupcy. They are known for Little King's Story and Hotel Dusk.

Ubisoft's controversial DRM fails due to DRM server downtime, leaving players angry. Not a good thing for the attempts at powerful DRM. Ubisoft is claiming the servers were the victim of an attack, which will likely be used as an example in the future of why these methods are too vulnerable to failure. So what's the future of this DRM?

Mochi Media develops new platform for game developers that makes it easier to make social – and monetizable – games. It's in private beta now, but you game devs will want to keep track of it – and it seems obvious Mochi has concerns about Facebook in mind.

Valve brings Steam distribution to the Mac. Mac gaming is an oft-ignored market, and this sounds like a savy move – Mac users tend to appreciate being remembered.

QUESTION: What's next for DRM efforts after the Ubisoft incident?

– Steven Savage