News and Analysis

A bit of a slow Monday, but it is Memorial day in the U.S.

Career:
How personal branding tops the mere 'having a resume' – A nice introduction, especially for folks relatively new to the job search.

Anime:
Funimation confirms one piece Japan/US Simulcast – Well an hours delay.  More of the usual anime-simulcast-internet integration we're pretty much used to.

Movies/TV/Hollywood:
Hollywood agents are feeling the axe – With internet media and self-promotion, are they even as important anymore?

Social Media:
Social Media is now a big thing for Broadway – Fast, cheap, and easy to promote.  This is an intersection of 'old and new' that bears watching for two reasons – as an interesting study of social media, and some interesting job opportunities for the social media-savvy.

– Steven Savage

Career:
A look at the jobs of the future – Erring towards green jobs, but with some interesting insights.

How a Gen Y'er got a dream job in the recession – Some useful personal insight – and he landed a very geeky job!

Economics/Freakonomics/Geekonomics:
In parts of Chicago, home foreclosures are now more due to job loss than subprime – Interesting for stats geeks, and a reminder that with multiple crises on top of each other, the effects of one are hard to measure if you just assume.

Technology:
Web Startups may not need as much from Venture Capital any more – An interesting theory – that is easier to start up, easier to sell off, and in general a case where companies work much faster than they used to.  If this theory holds water, it means more companies are leveraging existing routes, support, markets, and tools – which in turns means existing systems (Salesforce.com, Apple's iPhone Apps store, etc.) in turn become more important to the economy.

Video Games:
Venture Beat's Top 12 trends in video games – Very in depth (and rather positive for the cautious VB).  One of the things I didn't consider is the role of 'backfill' in gaming – which is a huge market I think some are exploiting without knowing it.  Worth reading if you're in, want to be in, or interested in the industry.

Game sales take a hit in April – This may or may not be a sign of a trend, so I present it more as a curiosity and a warning.

– Steven Savage

Career:
For college students general networking trumps social networking in the job search. I'd say this is definitely true, but note that some social networking tools let you do general networking more effectively.

Useful online tools for freelancers – Actually pretty useful period. May be useful in your freelancing, on the job, job search, or other ambitions.

Economics/Freakonomics/Geekonomics:
When it comes to detailed business plans it doesn't make a difference to Venture Capitalists. It may help you, but won't get their attention. Something to keep in mind for your own business – and it may help us make sense of some of the odd VC news we see (and the oddly successful VC news we see).

Jobless claims are still pretty lousy

Anime:
Funimation gets exclusive Simulcast deals for One Piece – Seems Funimation is more and more a distribution channel. I'm still not sure where a lot of anime is going so caution any career conclusions (beyond translation).

Publishing:
Amazon is branching into publishing and has its first fiction title – It appears to focus on self-published books, but the name fo the branch (AmazonEncore) and the talk from the VP of Books suggests they'll go for out of print titles. Sounds good – and takes them beyond the Kindle – but may meet some resistance from others as Amazon enters yet another market. This could of course play well into the Kindle, but my guess is they're hoping to play Long Tail and snatch up a lot of usefuls mall properties. Not sure if it'll work or not, but it may be another way to get published for writers.

Amazon will create blog subscription options for Kindle – So apparently people who really want to read RSS on their Kindle might use it. Not sure what this is for except, perhaps, a covering-bases-idea. It seems unprofitable.

Social Media:
Some hints on Twitter's business model – Essentially it sounds like more and integrated services, and some content deals. I'm wondering if Twitter's goal is to become middleware – they sort of already are of course – but just to take it all the way. This could be good for Twitter if they expand (and for employment), and if they develop APIs and services, programmers may find themselves having to learn some new interfaces.

Hi5's virtual currency is a go – Ahead of more successful rivals. I'm also intrigued by its many deals (with local companies in San Francisco). They may be able to pull something off here with their journey to social gaming. Not employment-worthy yet (what with the layoffs), but they may have a chance for a victory in their space.

The WSJ takes a negative approach to Social Media – A sad example of not getting it by viewing Social Media as a threat, not a tool. A sad analysis, but informative of how to get things totally backwards.

Social network TeeBeeDee gets into virtual goods. The difference? Unlike the usual tween-teen-20's targeting, this is aimed squarely at Boomers. This could be an example of a specialty site leveraging virtual goods, and may at least be useful watching as a case study – and if it works, it's possible other communities will broaden their target ages.

Video Games:
Factor 5 is closing down – I kept forgetting they were open. The falls keep coming in gaming.

-Steven Savage