News of the Day 11/11/2009

Career
When not to do things for free – A little advice, since we often do things for free for our careers. (I myself like what one friend said, that it's better to say 'no charge' than free).

What NaNoWriMo teaches you about Sustainability – Excellent article on how one experience can translate to another – including fannish ones.

Mobile:
Widely differing estimates of Droids sold – At this rate I'm going to back off and see what happens, battling numbers like this just raise the confusion level.

Publishing:
A good analysis of how social media taking news local. A good read with a lot of lessons you can extend to many industries.

Social Media:
I always say keep track of people who do middleware and foundational tech. Vivaty announces it's Social Gaming Platform tool. Might be worth checking out job-wise.

Technology:
HP acquires 3Com – for a big fee. This puts them in good stead to compete with Cisco and represents an amazingly expensive move in a bad economy. They're either desperate or (more likely) confident. I'm amazed to see a deal this big, so I'm betting it's more thought out. Important if you work in networking (or at any of the companies involed).

Video Games:
A few details leaked on Microsoft's Project Natal? Not much to go on.

Playdom raises $43 million to develop new products – AND acquire other companies. Sounds like they've got plans brewing, and $43 million is a nice amount of money that a low-overhead company can do a lot with. Keep the resumes ready – and wonder what they'll do in light of EA's obvious strategy change . . .

– Steven Savage