Links of the Day, 12/4/2008

Economics/Geekonomics

Retail sales for November were the weakest in years, to nobody's surprise. Meanwhile, mortgage refinaincings have experinced their biggest gap between applications and approvals since 1990. Rich Bernstein of Merrill Lynch, citing an NPR report, said that this is because home values have fallen. "Situations in which applicants had extremely high credit scores and were up-to-date on mortgage payments were being denied refinancing without going through the full home appraisal process," he said.

Media/Publishing

It's not a good day in this sector of the industry, with layoffs abounding.

NBC Universal will cut 500 employees at all levels of its company, including television, film and the Universal Studios theme parks. The NBC News bureaus in Dallas and Burbank have already been hit. It's actually a small number of layoffs compared to the figures we've heard from some other large companies, which may reflect the fact that NBC is very much tied in to new media (its MSNBC channel and site are a good example of multimedia synergy). Still, layoffs are layoffs.   

Also slashing staff is Viacom, which will cut 850 jobs, or 7% of its workforce, and the layoffs are said to go up to the executive vice president level. And in the newspaper sector, The Chicago Tribune will cut more than a dozen newsroom employees by Friday. The paper had previously laid off 80 people over the summer.

Anime/Manga

More than half of the best-selling graphic novels in bookstores last month were manga volumes, including two issues of Naruto. The industry definitely shows no signs of slowing down in tough economic times, which is good news for both publishers and retailers. However, at least one blogger is speculating on what will happen when megahit Naruto ends - will the whole industry suffer a crash, or will it just idle and wait for the next big thing? Something worth thinking about - if you get into the field, you may have to be prepared for a lull.

Video Games

Despite the fact that the Xbox 360 is currently flying high (the system had its best-ever sales performance during Black Friday), Microsoft vice president of games business strategy and business development Shane Kim is expressing concerns about 2009, saying he is only "cautiously optimistic" about the 2008 winter gift-buying season and even more concerned about the new year. Kim's pessimisim is understandable, even though the gaming industry is one of the few that have come close to being "recession-proof." Better to be cautious than cocky in an unstable economy.

Activision-Blizzard is building on its current successes by announcing sequels to Guitar Hero, Call of Duty and the Tony Hawk skateboarding games. The company definitely is taking the motto "don't mess with success" to heart, a very smart thing to do nowadays.

Techonology

The failed Google-Yahoo advertising agreement could have been even more dramatic than it was: it has been revealed that the companies were three hours away from antitrust charges being filed when the deal collapsed. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if the charges had been filed - chances are, the whole thing would have dragged on for a long, long time.

AT&T is cutting 12,000 jobs, representing 4% of its total workforce. The company said that they were doing this because of a "more streamlined organizational structure" in the face of current economic conditions. Kind of unexpected since the company is currently riding the iPhone wave, but it goes to show you that people should be prepared for anything no matter how "hot" their company currently is.

Netflix's Watch Now service has now gone live for Mac users, continuing the trend toward computer-based streaming video. Apple is also looking to upgrade its own technology, with a liquid-cooled laptop reportedly in its future, and is standing firm on the safety of its OS, removing an advisory for Mac users to install antivirus software. (We just hope that the safety bears out - a rash of infected Macs would be one for our "watch your step no matter how big you get" department).

Job Market

Jobs are still out there for people who have specialized training. Definitely something to keep in mind for anyone's career path. A few extra courses here and there, a couple of certifications in an in-demand area, can go a very long way.

Initial filings for state unemploment benefits show that jobless claims have gone into a surprise decline. These decreased by 21,000 to 509,000 for the week ended Nov. 29, according to the Labor Department. Maybe this is a sign that there's light at the end of the long, long tunnel after all.

- Bonnie