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