Twitter limits 3rd party ads, Bloomberg may be delivering a good smack to rating agencies, Flash smacks Android 2.2 into slowdown, and Farmville on your Slurpee? It's a day of weird news, my fellow progeeks – and here it is!
Career:
Thinking of trying a video resume? Here's what to say.
Business:
Are experts the problem in an organization? An interesting speculation that they become bottlenecks. I'm not sure this is that much of an avoidable problem (though methods like SCRUM to help), but this bottleneck effect is definitely something I've seen. I'm sure you progeeks have seen them . . . or been one . . .
Economics/Geekonomics:
Bloomberg has it's own credit rating system. Not interested? Their system is a transparent, formula-driven system that shows its numbers, as opposed to the less transparent mess that we've seen lately. A very geeky thing (number crunching) that might challenge other agencies – the ones that screwed up pretty badly (and deliberately) . . . and people are aware of it.
Publishing:
Harvard Library turns increasingly towards digital and sharing. Part of current trends, and with big name recognition, perhaps an amplification of them. Remember too that students going to Havard and other ePublishing-friendly universities will get used to this, affecting what technologies they use now and in the future.
Relocation:
Toronto is a geektastic city, but Richard Florida (who lives there), notes there are some things that could improve. I find this article amusing as I find Toronto an ideal city, so it's a reminder that living somewhere makes its imperfections obvious.
Social Media:
Twitter won't allow third party paid tweets into any Twitter Timeline using it's API. Not surprising, but I can see where this gets a little confusing for some people – and a blow to some startups wanting to do Twitter advertising.
Facebook changes its privacy settings. One of the best part of this article is the note that Facebook essentially is under pressure to grow up – and the question is, will it? If it doesn't – or doesn't fast enough – who will benefit?
Technology:
Tthe latest Flash slows Android 2.2's browser the heck down. Beyond the technical warning, this will probably be a point in favor of Apple in the bizarre Apple-Adobe battle. I use Flash to, but hey, I never assumed it's efficient. Or stable. Or even that secure.
Video Games:
Gaikai, who provides a browser-based game streaming service, raises $10 million in venture capital. These guys are competitors with OnLive. Now beyond the job issues (hey, they may need new employees to help spend that money), I think this is a good move for game streaming – when it was all about OnLive that was one thing. A little healthy competition may help something come out of game streaming, which I'm very iffy on.
7-11 sells Farmville slurpees. With game codes. I include this to show you some marketing synergy, and remind you of Zynga's reach and innovations.
MySpace announces its Game Lab to work more with 3rd party developers. They've lined up some good folks already.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: Is Twitter's move with ads going to help it or hurt it?
-Steven Savage